
My Interviews with Airbnb, Dropbox, Posterous, Reddit, Weebly and Wufoo - wasd
http://foundersatwork.posthaven.com/my-interviews-with-airbnb-dropbox-posterous-reddit-weebly-and-wufoo-circa-2010
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austenallred
If you haven't read it yet, Founders At Work is, IMO, the most informative
book I've ever read as far as what the early days of a startup are like.

The most fascinating part to me is realizing that few, if any, of the founders
realized they were really on to something. I'm sure they all had plenty of
self doubt and wondered if they were crazy at times. They believed in what
they were doing, of course, but there's a period of time before a company
becomes a breakout success that isn't sexy enough for most people to pay
attention to. We tend to skip past the whole "working and building" part to
the "look at how successful they are." That, in my opinion, can be dangerous.

I'm very grateful that Jessica is going through all of the work documenting
these stories for us. Thanks, Jessica.

~~~
mellavora
At least once per week, I have an hour or two where my idea seems hopelessly
stupid. You just have to power through it.

Like doing heavy squats. You don't have to like doing them, you just have to
do them. A fun game is to think of as many excuses as you can to not do the
next set. The next set is one rep for each excuse on your list. Unless you
don't have any excuses, in which case you do the set (there's no excuse not
to, right?)

Observe/acknowledge the emotion and get back to work.

~~~
mlrtime
Good analogy, when I'm walking up to a heavy bar I still get nervous and think
"Do I really have to do this?". But when I'm not squatting I miss it. The
endorphins probably explain this a bit.

~~~
mellavora
@mlrtime: That's not nervousness, that is your body preparing to do something
difficult, i.e. physiological arousal. Of course it has a cognitive component.

let your thoughts do whatever they want. You are not your thoughts. Recognize
that this is how you prepare to do the squat. Then do it.

You of course know that heavy lifting builds strong bones. Ever realize that
building bone strength increases mental strength? Bones are an important part
of the endocrine system, they produce lots of interesting chemicals.

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WestCoastJustin
> _I 'd like to find the time to do more (and work on improving my on-camera
> interview style)._

For anyone interested. There is a great breakdown of how this works, gear,
lighting, interview style, sound, etc @
[https://vimeo.com/101128416](https://vimeo.com/101128416) (interview section
starts at 2:30). The guys entire channel is packed with useful bits about
photography, how to get exactly what you need out of the scenes, sounds
quality, etc. Could literally spend hours and hours getting tips and tricks in
there. If you are at all interested in this type of stuff, well worth checking
out, and the quality of advise pretty much speaks for it self.

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far33d
I would LOVE to see a Founders at Work 2.0 - so many incredible companies have
been built since that book was published. The iPhone had just been released,
for instance.

~~~
charlierguo
It's not exactly Founders at Work 2.0, but I'm working on a book that's been
heavily influenced by Founders at Work, as well as pg's "Do Things That Don't
Scale" essay.

It's called Unscalable:
[https://www.inkshares.com/projects/unscalable](https://www.inkshares.com/projects/unscalable)

</shamelessplug>

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randall
Anyone who looks at this style show and wants to do it, please let me know.
We're looking for beta testers for a new product that makes these style of
shows much simpler.

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yitchelle
As a side topic to this, can anyone recommend "interview style" podcast from
the startup world other than Mixergy or the TWIT podcasts?

I have recently discovered From Scratch [1]. I really like this as it also
discuss the person as well as their startup. More human..

[1] -
[http://www.fromscratchradio.org/show/](http://www.fromscratchradio.org/show/)

~~~
samsolomon
It may not be exactly what you're looking for, but I have a show interviewing
people in tech and design. The focus is on longform copy, but I produce a
podcast and video with each interview.
[http://signaltower.co/](http://signaltower.co/)

It might be worth checking out. I've got interviews with VP of Design, Cap
Watkins and Telescope Creator, Sacha Grief in postproduction right now.

~~~
yitchelle
Thanks for hint. I subscribed.

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brc
It would be great to have this in interview transcript form, like the Founders
at Work book. I push that onto all sorts of people. Founders at Work 2.0 is
definitely a must-do project, even if it's just a blog series and not a dead-
tree publication.

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bg0
These are great. I would of loved to see the end of the Reddit one before it
got cut out.

~~~
kn0thing
Wanna AMA about the founding of reddit? Go for it.

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sparkzilla
Thanks Jessica, I added these to a timeline I created of your interviews and
speeches: [http://newslines.org/jessica-
livingston/](http://newslines.org/jessica-livingston/)

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mellavora
Thanks, Jessica, listening to founder stories is a huge help

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eddd
In dropbox video, 13:30 Jessica Livingston in on mute.

~~~
jl
Yes, there were so many technical snafus with my set-up that I eventually
wound up giving up on these.

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dimitrideag
Awesome! Thank you! No doubts that will help a lot!

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erispoe
This is great. The Mixergy stuff she's referring to, though, is incredibly
badly delivered. No I don't want to subscribe to a newsletter to receive a mp3
file in my inbox and then move that file to my phone so that I can listen to
it. Why not a podcast feed?

~~~
jl
Part of what inspired me to dig these up today was the spamwall.

~~~
startupfounder
Thanks for posting these JL!

