Five Founders

by rams • 17 years ago

179 63 17 years ago

unalone6• 17 years ago

That "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• 17 years ago

From 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.

axod2• 17 years ago

Lots of people are fearless and can make anything happen. I'm not sure you can really compare Loopt with Apple quite yet :/ Bizarre.

unalone6• 17 years ago

Anything 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.

Agathos• 17 years ago

It'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• 17 years ago

Interview w/ TJ Rodgers. Lots about his solar company:

http://fora.tv/2008/04/07/Uncommon_Knowledge_T_J__Rodgers#ch...

Also worth noting that he has a highly technical background.

yagibear• 17 years ago

Thanks 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%3Dstrip...]

Note also PG's typo ("Rogers" should be "Rodgers") which slightly hinders searching.

arundelo• 17 years ago

If I remember correctly, he's interviewed in John Stossel's "Greed":

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=C30B787FF5E0C1DD

suhail• 17 years ago

Interesting, 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 =)

Xichekolas2• 17 years ago

Well 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.

axod2• 17 years ago

It'll be really impressive if that results in revenue.

prakash4• 17 years ago

Are you sure? I thought they had a really experienced BD guy: http://www.loopt.com/about/executives

david927• 17 years ago

Paul Buchheit at Startup School 08 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZxP0i9ah8E

Sam Altman at Startup School 08 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m43t44WL8-w

brm• 17 years ago

PG or anyone else: Can you point me to any further reading on the "doctrine of the elect" ?

kirubakaran2• 17 years ago

doctrine 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://www.hccentral.com/delect.html

twoz• 17 years ago

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• 17 years ago

Doctrine of the Elect is also significant for creating voluntary association, which has been a subtle but important catalyzing principle of western civilization.

ambition• 17 years ago

I think it's this: PG is convinced Sam will succeed no matter what.

juanpablo• 17 years ago

Neo in "The Matrix"

old-gregg• 17 years ago

Well, 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

kirubakaran2• 17 years ago

It felt as if someone had flipped on a light switch inside my head.

So TJ Rogers is pg's pg.

prakash4• 17 years ago

Slightly less/more interesting is that who didn't make the list. RTM.

pg2• 17 years ago

He's on a better list:

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.

raintrees3• 17 years ago

And that 1993 speech by TJ Rogers had me thinking in a roar: Yeah!

logicalmind• 17 years ago

I 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.

spoiledtechie• 17 years ago

Anybody else think that TJ Rogers Article is what is exactly happening today?

Wow, just wow. Why isn't TJ Rogers the Chief Officer on finances to the president?

prakash4• 17 years ago

Typo: Sam instead of Sama in the last 2 para's unless you meant SamA

shrughes• 17 years ago

I'm pretty sure he meant Sama, unless he meant sama:

http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=sama

prakash4• 17 years ago

Ah! My bad.

andrewparker• 17 years ago

A 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• 17 years ago

How is this a Sam Altman story?

tigerthink2• 17 years ago

There 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.

basugasubaku2• 17 years ago

Well what else did he expect?

I think you mean CS 193i. It's fairly well known that the CS 193x series are all "easy", non-intensive, non-academic courses designed to teach something useful (there's "high-performance websites", "internet technologies", "iphone programming", "client-side internet technologies", etc.) They have very few if no prereqs other than perhaps some programming experience.

And the point of that assignment wasn't to "build a browser". It's to introduce the students to sockets and HTTP. Just what you'd expect for CS 193i.

sanj• 17 years ago

There's classes for this stuff at Stanford!?

Then what do you do with your free time?

sharpn2• 17 years ago

How 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).

ryanwaggoner• 17 years ago

Branson is definitely one of my favorite entrepreneurs of all time. That said, Virgin Galactic is a long way from being a $1Bn company :)

sharpn2• 17 years ago

Yeah, I grant you Galactic isn't there yet :o)

nostrademons• 17 years ago

The 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...

wallflower2• 17 years ago

If 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)

wumi• 17 years ago

Bill Gates?

MSFT Gates Foundation

whughes• 17 years ago

Steve 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.

Five Founders

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