
Five Founders - rams
http://paulgraham.com/5founders.html
======
david927
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>

------
unalone
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
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.

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

~~~
daleharvey
He 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)

~~~
norswap
Building some mobile syndication thingy is by no mean comparable to designing
the first mac.

------
kirubakaran
_It felt as if someone had flipped on a light switch inside my head._

So TJ Rogers is pg's pg.

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

~~~
logicalmind
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.

~~~
raintrees
I enjoyed a book by Thomas J. DiLorenzo, "How Capitalism Saved America," where
he points out that we haven't really practiced Capitalism, but Mercantilism,
instead.

Wouldn't it also depend on what type of company we are referring to? Or
timing? Aren't companies that do not have a product yet beholden to
investment?

It seems that it might take too much time to have individual buyers' purchases
fund a company that requires a large investment in infrastructure to get
going...

~~~
raintrees
The first part of my post is missing.

I wrote "I guess what it means to me is the less government meddling in the
market, the better. The Government is already having a hard time fulfilling
their regulatory role, no need to have them waste more time skewing markets
with pricing controls/subsidies."

------
suhail
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 =)

~~~
Xichekolas
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.

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

~~~
Xichekolas
Hence the 'lore' comment... thanks for setting me straight!

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

[http://fora.tv/2008/04/07/Uncommon_Knowledge_T_J__Rodgers#ch...](http://fora.tv/2008/04/07/Uncommon_Knowledge_T_J__Rodgers#chapter_01)

Also worth noting that he has a highly technical background.

~~~
yagibear
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...](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-
alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=t.+j.+rodgers)]

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

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

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

------
old-gregg
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

------
andrewparker
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
How is this a Sam Altman story?

~~~
tigerthink
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.

~~~
unalone
I 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.

~~~
tigerthink
By "hacker" I mean someone who has the compulsive curiosity for programming
that some of you seem to have. And by "intimidating" I mean they seem like
they might be much better programmers than me. (Hence virtual experience is
just as good an indicator as real-world experience.)

~~~
unalone
Not everybody here is a compulsive programmer. I'm not a particularly good
programmer myself: my focus is more on designing and building things that
don't exist already. That's the great thing about the industry: it's so huge
that you can focus on one of any number of things and still find success at
what you do.

------
sharpn
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).

~~~
nostrademons
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...

~~~
wallflower
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)

~~~
10ren
Macintosh.

BTW I think his main contribution to Pixar was leaving them alone (but note
his talent in _selecting_ them).

~~~
wallflower
It'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/>

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

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

------
wumi
Bill Gates?

MSFT Gates Foundation

------
whughes
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.

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

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

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

~~~
prakash
Ah! My bad.

