Founder Profiles and Startup Stories

Howard Hughes as aviator, film producer and Las Vegas hotel owner, and his decline.

The story of how Twitter was founded and of the founders who built it.

How Theranos reached a $9 billion value with blood tests that never worked.

How Uber grew on subsidies and aggression until its founder was pushed out in 2017.

Apple's growth from a garage workshop to a company with over $1 billion in sales.

McDonald's to the mid-1980s, from the brothers' stand to Kroc's franchise system.

How Asa Candler built Coca-Cola and Robert Woodruff made it a global brand.

Jim Clark, founder of Silicon Graphics and Netscape, starts a third company in 1999.

Steve Jobs's life and Apple's products, from forty interviews with him and many more.

Netflix from its 1997 founding to Qwikster in 2011, and its war with Blockbuster.

Amazon's first two decades, from an online bookshop to selling nearly everything.

The wildcatters, from George Mitchell to Harold Hamm, who started the shale boom.

Musk's life from South Africa and PayPal to running SpaceX and Tesla at once.

Airbnb from three air mattresses in 2007 to a global lodging business.

How Uber and Airbnb built businesses in regulated markets by acting first.

The rise of WeWork and Adam Neumann and its failed public offering.

WeWork's rise under Adam Neumann, the failed 2019 IPO and SoftBank's rescue.

PayPal from Confinity and X.com through the merger to the 2002 sale to eBay.

Two years shadowing Musk, across SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink and the buying of Twitter.

Four companies, from Planet Labs to Rocket Lab, racing to build cheap satellites.

Masayoshi Son's rise from Kyushu to SoftBank, Yahoo Japan and the Vision Fund.

The only dedicated English biography; stops before the handover.

The one dedicated book: Huizenga's roll-up and the sale to Viacom.

Insider account by an early PayPal marketing hire; partisan but first-hand.

Inside Y Combinator in the years before Altman ran it.

3G Capital's meritocracy-and-zero-based-budgeting playbook, from AmBev to Heinz.

The Ansari X Prize and the start of commercial human spaceflight.

Reported from inside Uber just before the 2017 crisis broke.

The commercial-space policy fight that let SpaceX in.

SpaceX against Blue Origin and the legacy contractors.

Authorised, translated from Japanese; admiring in tone.

The founder scene around OpenAI, reported from inside the funding rounds.

Glen Bell's rise from poverty to build Taco Bell and sell it for $130 million.

How Chuck Feeney made a fortune from Duty Free Shoppers and gave it away in secret.

Jeff Bezos and Amazon's early years, from D. E. Shaw to the founding in 1994.