Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days

“Jessica Livingston's interview collection captures the early days of companies that became significant, before the mythology hardened. Feld has recommended it on his blog for the texture it gives to what the first year of a startup actually looks like — unglamorous, uncertain, and almost always different from the story told later.”

“Recommended for entrepreneurs in his AVC book threads.”

“Jessica Livingston's interviews with early-stage founders — conducted before the companies became famous — are a direct product of the YC community Graham helped build. He has described the book as unusual because it captures what actually happened in the early days rather than the retrospective mythology.”

“Livingston interviewed the founders of Apple, PayPal, Flickr, Hotmail, and dozens of others at the moment they were still close to the founding. The consistent thread is how little anyone knew at the start and how much the eventual product differed from the original idea. Useful antidote to retrospective mythology.”