Updates

  1. Person pages list letters, writing, profiles and links as sortable tables with filters, and show each person's companies as links; Fund letters show each letter's description in its own column.
  2. Experts show a checked job title and a short description of each person; 30 more people have photographs.
  3. Every company, fund, university and publication the experts work for has a page listing the people there.
  4. Fund letters show each letter's thesis and filter by it; 225 person pages list the essays, columns and newsletter issues the person wrote.
  5. Person pages list every essay and newsletter issue a person wrote, and their own books as a table in List view.
  6. Recommends shows the five largest kinds of book and the rest under More; browse pictures load sooner.
  7. Podcasts and talks link the original episode, filter by Audio and video or Press, and list each publisher once.
  8. Pages are wider, Recommends has List and Grid, and a filter clicked again turns off.
  9. Book cards sit in a ruled grid with Open Library and Goodreads links and each book's one-line note.
  10. Funds is now Investors; each investor's styles are buttons that filter the table.
  11. Podcasts and talks on a person's page filter by year and publisher and show as a list or a grid of pictures.
  12. Quotes show only people's own words: 472 summaries written by list sites are gone.
  13. Country pages open from Browse again, and every link on the shelf lands on a page.
  14. Subject and person pages show their sections as tabs, and each book appears once on a person's page.
  15. Book cards show the quote, who said it and the source; grids show five cards to a row.
  16. On a phone, a menu holds the sections, search, Updates, Feedback and dark mode.
  17. Feedback takes a screenshot of the page with no browser prompt, opens a screenshot full size when you click it, and clears itself once sent.
  18. Book cards are centred, search names the topic each book sits in, and any text cut short shows whole on hover.
  19. Search groups its results by kind: people, companies, geographies, subjects, topics, books, funds, fund letters and papers.
  20. The Books table lists who recommended each book by name, and the browser tab names the section you are in.
  21. Feedback can take a screenshot of the page, or one you paste or choose, and opens in the corner beside Updates.
  22. Each rail button reopens its section where you left it, and Browse, Table and People show on every book and subject page.
  23. Filters grey out choices that hold nothing instead of hiding them, and Books › People filters by authors or recommenders.
  24. Feedback takes a subject line and up to three screenshots.
  25. Biographies are grouped by the person they are about: 41 new pages, from Abraham Lincoln to Lee Kuan Yew.
  26. Sport splits into 23 sports, and Religion into one topic per faith.
  27. Book lists show as cards: the cover, one recommendation quote and every recommender by name.
  28. Seventeen subjects that had two or three pages under different names now have one page each.
  29. Every page lists its Experts as authors and recommenders, with a link to them on the Experts tab.
  30. Economics, Financial history, Financial panics and Accounting are subjects of their own, with one page per financial crisis.
  31. Book, person and subject pages open inside the app, so the tabs stay in view.
  32. 996 more book covers, and photographs or logos for 227 more people and companies.
  33. Books › Browse shows every subject as cards, and the rail holds Fund letters, Papers, Experts, Books and Funds.
  34. Every topic over 150 books splits into narrower topics, each with a page of its own.

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RE

Randall E. Stross

T3JournalistsAcademicsCompanies and their leaders

Wrote nine books, among them The Wizard of Menlo Park (2007), on Thomas Edison, and A Practical Education, on Stanford humanities graduates at work.

San Jose State University

Each book reports one organisation from inside over a defined stretch of time: a year among Y Combinator's batch companies, Benchmark's partners through the dot-com IPO wave, Edison's Menlo Park laboratory. The result records how venture firms and inventors actually spent their days, which reads as evidence rather than retrospective summary.

6 books of their own · 3 appearances

Books 6Appearances 3

Start here

  1. The Launch PadRandall E. Stross, 2012
  2. eBoysRandall E. Stross, 2000
  3. The Wizard of Menlo ParkRandall E. Stross, 2007
The Launch PadThe Launch Pad
T3 The Launch Pad
Randall E. Stross · 2012
Open LibraryGoodreads

Inside Y Combinator in the years before Altman ran it.

Recommended by: Garry Tan, Paul Graham

eBoyseBoys
T3 eBoys
Randall E. Stross · 2000
Open LibraryGoodreads

Two years embedded inside Benchmark Capital.

The Wizard of Menlo ParkThe Wizard of Menlo Park
T3 The Wizard of Menlo Park
Randall E. Stross · 2007
Open LibraryGoodreads

Edison as the first manufactured celebrity.

“I've recently been reading Randall Stross's marvelous book about Thomas Edison, The Wizard of Menlo Park” — Marc Andreessen

Source: The Pmarca Guide to Startups, Part 7

Recommended by: Marc Andreessen, David Friedberg

Planet GooglePlanet Google
T3 Planet Google
Randall E. Stross · 2008
Open LibraryGoodreads

Recommended by: Keith Rabois

Steve Jobs and the NeXT Big ThingSteve Jobs and the NeXT Big Thing
T3 Steve Jobs and the NeXT Big Thing
Randall E. Stross · 1993
Open LibraryGoodreads

Contemporaneous account of the NeXT failure.

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai, Keith Rabois

The Microsoft WayThe Microsoft Way
T3 The Microsoft Way
Randall E. Stross · 1996
Open LibraryGoodreads

Sympathetic 1990s analysis of Microsoft's competitive method.

The Launch PadInside Y Combinator in the years before Altman ran it.2012T3Garry Tan, Paul Graham
eBoysTwo years embedded inside Benchmark Capital.2000T3–
The Wizard of Menlo ParkEdison as the first manufactured celebrity.2007T3Marc Andreessen, David Friedberg
Planet Google–2008T3Keith Rabois
Steve Jobs and the NeXT Big ThingContemporaneous account of the NeXT failure.1993T3Mohnish Pabrai, Keith Rabois
The Microsoft WaySympathetic 1990s analysis of Microsoft's competitive method.1996T3–

Tags

y-combinatorbenchmarkgooglemicrosoftnextthomas-edisonsteve-jobspaul-grahamtechnologyventure-capitalstartup-formationcompany-historyinvention