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Five Founders
- unalone 18y agoThat "TJ Rogers" article is reporting itself as "not found." (EDIT: Never mind, I tried again and it loaded.) Also - meaning absolutely no disrespect to sama - but why specifically is he on the list? I've used Loopt, and while it's very good, it's not particularly interesting in its design, and while it fills a pretty huge niche, so do quite a lot of other startups. I'm certain other sites have more users, more addicted users (Facebook?), and more constant activity. Perhaps it's a matter of knowing Sam in person? In that case, I'd be curious as to what exactly makes him such a memorable figure.
- larrykubin 18y agoFrom what I've read/heard, the guy is fearless and can make anything happen. "Sam Altman could parachute into an island full of cannibals and be king within 5 years." When I was his age, I was boldly drinking my first beer and trying to figure out who I was. He was apparently building autonomous helicopter navigation systems, making deals with major cell phone companies, and getting prepared to be a speaker at the Apple WWDC. I've never met him, but from what I gather he just has the "it" factor.
- axod 18y agoLots of people are fearless and can make anything happen. I'm not sure you can really compare Loopt with Apple quite yet :/ Bizarre.
- daleharvey 18y agoHe didnt compare loopt with apple, he compared Sam with Steve Jobs, how old is sam? plenty of time for bigger things than loopt(which is still a pretty impressive achievement)
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- unalone 18y agoDon't get me wrong, that's very impressive, but that's hardly a unique case. First person that comes to mind, again, is Mark Zuckerberg, who left Harvard. (Not to mention Bill Gates, who did the same a generation earlier.)
- larrykubin 18y agoPerhaps the people you mentioned (Bill and Mark) would be on your top 5 list. Here are the other lists from the article, many of which include Gates: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090401/that-certain-something_Printer_Friendly.html http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090401/that-certain-something_... It's the equivalent of listing the "5 albums that influenced you the most". There are many answers, no one is saying that Sam has done something that has never been done before.
- unalone 18y agoFair enough. Perhaps I'm thinking too much in this list. I just wondered what set Sam apart from other YC founders.
- norswap 18y agoBuilding some mobile syndication thingy is by no mean comparable to designing the first mac.
- kyro 18y agoI think he's referring to Sam's appearance at WWDC regarding Loopt on the iPhone.
- andreyf 18y agoI think he's referring to Steve Jobs appearing on the same list as Sam.
- mattmaroon 18y agoYou can compare anyone with anyone else. You just can't equate them.
- tjic 18y ago> Lots of people are fearless and can make anything happen Not in my experience. It's a pretty rare trait.
- unalone 18y agoBut still, it's not a "5-people-only" trait. So why Sam Altman instead of, say, Jeff Bezos? Or Mark Zuckerberg?
- unalone 18y agoAnything in particular that you read/heard? I mean, again - don't get me wrong, because he's a very impressive guy. I hope that I'm able to do things that great that young. But "young ultrasuccessful founder" is not a rare thing. Being a billionaire before 25 has happened again and again. But we're all aware of that, since the culture is so ultrafocused on the youth and beauty brigade. And obviously PG isn't writing Sam in because he wants to promote Loopt, because Sam doesn't need another Inc mention beyond the ones he's had already. So I'd be interested in what exactly Sam's on the list for, since I know next to nothing about the guy.
- abossy 18y ago> But "young ultrasuccessful founder" is not a rare thing. Being a billionaire before 25 has happened again and again. What exactly do you consider 'rare?' According to Forbes, there were 691 billionaires in the world (of all ages) in 2005. In a world with about 7B people, the probability that you be in that group is 691/7000000000 = 9.87142... e-8 % Sam is no billionaire, AFAIK, but he shares the qualities of approximately 0.0000001% of the world's most financially successful population. On top of that, he's in his early 20's. The number is even smaller if you include the handful of members in this demographic. Quite a good justification to be on that list, IMO.
- unalone 18y agoApologies. Using the phrase "billionaire" was exaggerated. (I think that billionaire before 25 has happened twice or thrice?) There are, however, many, many young tech millionaires. My point, as I said before, wasn't that I was critical of him, and - again - I'm certain he's on the list for good reason. I just want to know what qualities in particular elevate him above all those other people who could have been included.
- iamwil 18y agohttp://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=278311 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=278311 You can read what he says about doing bizdev. Considering he got big companies to work with his startup, I think there's probably some nuggets in there.
- Agathos 18y agoIt's a little funny. The first I heard of Sam Altman was when Paul Graham said, "Ah, so this is what Bill Gates must have been like when he was 19." 2.5 years later Paul puts Sam on the list and leaves Bill off of it.
- uuilly 18y agoInterview w/ TJ Rodgers. Lots about his solar company: http://fora.tv/2008/04/07/Uncommon_Knowledge_T_J__Rodgers#chapter_01 http://fora.tv/2008/04/07/Uncommon_Knowledge_T_J__Rodgers#ch... Also worth noting that he has a highly technical background.
- yagibear 18y agoThanks for the link. Pointers to other writing by Rodgers would be useful. In terms of books, I could only find one from 1993: "No-Excuses Management" [http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=t.+j.+rodgers http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstrip...] Note also PG's typo ("Rogers" should be "Rodgers") which slightly hinders searching.
- arundelo 18y agoIf I remember correctly, he's interviewed in John Stossel's "Greed": http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=C30B787FF5E0C1DD http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=C30B787FF5E0C1DD
- suhail 18y agoInteresting, I can kind of wish you talked about Sam Altman since we don't know too much about him other than Loopt. Sounds like he's super motivated to win but I wish there was an example =)
- Xichekolas 18y agoWell he pretty much single-handedly (as I understand it from lore) talked major carriers into supporting Loopt on their phones. Considering how carriers normally treat new technology, this shows considerable force of will. To even get them to listen to you would be impressive. The fact that they agreed, more so.
- axod 18y agoIt'll be really impressive if that results in revenue.
- prakash 18y agoAre you sure? I thought they had a really experienced BD guy: http://www.loopt.com/about/executives http://www.loopt.com/about/executives
- Xichekolas 18y agoHence the 'lore' comment... thanks for setting me straight!
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- david927 18y agoPaul Buchheit at Startup School 08 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZxP0i9ah8E http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZxP0i9ah8E Sam Altman at Startup School 08 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m43t44WL8-w http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m43t44WL8-w
- brm 18y agoPG or anyone else: Can you point me to any further reading on the "doctrine of the elect" ?
- kirubakaran 18y agodoctrine of the elect ... is a living, breathing human being who is guaranteed to gain salvation no matter what he or she does here on earth http://wsu.edu/~dee/REFORM/CALVIN.HTM http://wsu.edu/~dee/REFORM/CALVIN.HTM http://www.hccentral.com/delect.html http://www.hccentral.com/delect.html
- twoz 18y agohttp://www.google.com/search?q=doctrine+of+the+elect+puritan http://www.google.com/search?q=doctrine+of+the+elect+puritan "The Doctrine of the Elect better known as predestination or foreordination is the belief that when a person is born or at any time later in their life, they might be chosen by God to become one of the Elect, which is one of the people who would receive divine salvation."
- colins_pride 18y agoDoctrine of the Elect is also significant for creating voluntary association, which has been a subtle but important catalyzing principle of western civilization.
- ambition 18y agoI think it's this: PG is convinced Sam will succeed no matter what.
- juanpablo 18y agoNeo in "The Matrix"
- old-gregg 18y agoWell, I'm glad the limit was 5. Extrapolating from this limited data set I was prepared to see Paul's next door neighbors as #9 and #10
- kirubakaran 18y agoIt felt as if someone had flipped on a light switch inside my head. So TJ Rogers is pg's pg.
- prakash 18y agoSlightly less/more interesting is that who didn't make the list. RTM.
- pg 18y agoHe's on a better list: http://www.paulgraham.com/heroes.html http://www.paulgraham.com/heroes.html I've learned a lot from Rtm about various things, especially hacking, but not much about startups for the simple reason that we both learned about startups at the same time from the same experiences.
- simplegeek 18y agoI'm a huge RTM fan. Can you please share some of what you learned from RTM when it comes to hacking? I'm guessing that would make a great essay.
- pg 18y agoIt made a book, actually: http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html
- raintrees 18y agoAnd that 1993 speech by TJ Rogers had me thinking in a roar: Yeah!
- logicalmind 18y agoI find this speech baffling. Investors don't make companies successful, sales do! Do you want taxes to increase on the people investing in companies that may or may not succeed or do you want taxes to decrease on the people who buy your products. Cutting a companies taxes doesn't increase the amount of people a company can hire. However, cutting the taxes of the people who buy your products will likely increase sales. These increased sales mean more money to hire more people. Let's be real. Companies will hire the minimal amount of people to get the job done. They aren't going to hire people willy nilly because they get a tax break. Companies will hire more people when their sales increase and they need more bodies. To increase sales you decrease the taxes on the consumer class.
- evil 18y agoWas Jobs more important to Apple's success than Woz?
- prakash 18y agoTypo: Sam instead of Sama in the last 2 para's unless you meant SamA
- many 18y agoFailure to make a clear distinction between luck and "force of will" is pretty foolish. Yet it is clear that Mr. A. is not the Yth. (Thanks to the fownders who got it up before the Google homepage. Yay you.)
- andrewparker 18y agoA brief Sam Altman story: Back when I was in college, I decided to be an RA for a Freshman dorm during my Junior year. Two of my freshman in my dorm were Sam Altman and Blake Ross. We took a class together called Internet Technologies (CS191i). Our first assignment was to build a VERY rudimentary web browser in Perl; all it did was, open a socket, accept and validate a URL as input, and print out the result of a GET request from a web server. The creator of Firefox was assigned "build a web browser" as homework! Needless to say, both Sam and Blake dropped out of school before the end of their Sophomore year.
- mcxx 18y agoHow is this a Sam Altman story?
- tigerthink 18y agoThere is a weird disparity between the programmers I read on the internet and the programming students I know in real life. The programmers I read on the internet are self-taught, have side projects, and are intimidating. The programming students I know in real life are college-taught, generally don't have side projects, and aren't intimidating. I think I belong to the second group more than the first. Should I switch to a different major? Or is there a place in the world for programmers who aren't hackers? As a third option, someone might have some magical "how to become a hacker" advice that I haven't already read.
- unalone 18y agoI don't quite know what you mean by hacker - do you just mean you haven't worked on stuff on the side? As for intimidating - I don't know if I've ever met a hacker in real life that really seemed intimidating. A lot of people develop a sort of persona online, either because they think they're cool or because they're so flooded with work that they simply don't have time to talk to every single person they meet. So the more that you do, the more mail you get from people, and the harder it is to respond to them, and the more it seems like you're exclusive and therefore intimidating. Don't switch majors because of other people. Switch if you don't like what you're doing. Do you really like programming, exploring code or at the very least making that code work? If so, there's bound to be a place for you. As for "becoming" a hacker: again, try not to look at other people. The path to people having ideas and making projects is always a bit askew and twisted. If you ever want a side project, go ahead and start one. Get your hands dirty. The more you do, the wiser you get. But don't feel like it's a necessity. Also remember that lots of college students are just learning to code. The self-taught kids have a few years' advantage in a lot of situations. That doesn't necessarily make them better (though a lot more of them have an aptitude for the subject matter). It's certainly possible to get into programming late in your career and still turn it into something meaningful.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- sharpn 18y agoHow about Richard Branson? Who has created more $1Bn companies in different marketplaces (and had fun along the way)? I count 4/5 so far Virgin Records, Atlantic (& Blue) airlines, Radio, Mobile/Media... and counting (for example Virgin Galactic & Rail are getting there).
- nostrademons 18y agoThe question specified "Within the last 30 years" - Branson started Virgin more than 40 years ago. Though I kinda wonder why Steve Jobs is on the list then, since he started Apple 33 years ago. Maybe he just squeaked in...
- wallflower 18y agoIf you apply the filter of who has had a major part in the creation of revolutionary products, I think Steve is legendary among his peers: Apple II iPod iPhone Pixar (first successful computer animation studio - but not a product)
- 10ren 18y agoMacintosh. BTW I think his main contribution to Pixar was leaving them alone (but note his talent in selecting them).
- wallflower 18y agoIt's just a photo of a Pixar company-wide function but I'd love to be good enough to work for them based on it (and what I've read). http://www.flickr.com/photos/teohyc/2564116426/sizes/l/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/teohyc/2564116426/sizes/l/
- ryanwaggoner 18y agoBranson is definitely one of my favorite entrepreneurs of all time. That said, Virgin Galactic is a long way from being a $1Bn company :)
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- wumi 18y agoBill Gates? MSFT Gates Foundation
- whughes 18y agoSteve Jobs founded Apple in 1976. (To mentions of billg, he founded MS in 1975.) That was over 30 years ago. While it is nitpicking, I'd like to see them cleared out for more novel choices.