Founders at Work

Jessica Livingston, a partner at Y Combinator, has just published a book of interviews with 32 high tech company founders called Founders at Work.

She posted a couple of chapters online, including the interview with me, which is probably the most complete story of the early days of Fog Creek Software in print.

“There's a bunch of people out there doing certain types of things and they seem to be pretty incompetent, but they're getting huge valuations. Surely if I did those same things, knowing that I am less incompetent—merely semi-incompetent as opposed to extremely incompetent—I should be able to achieve at least their level of success.”

I haven't read the book yet... still waiting for my copy to arrive from Amazon, which appears to be beyond semi-incompetent with regards to what "overnight shipping" might mean when you order something on Thursday. Check out the list of interviews, though: virtually everyone starting a high tech company will be all over this book like senators on cake.

Oh, and by the way: My company, Fog Creek Software, has paid internships in software development for qualified college students. They're in New York City. Free housing, lunch, and more. And you get to work on real, shipping software with the smartest developers in the business.

About the Author: I’m your host, Joel Spolsky, a software developer in New York City. Since 2000, I've been writing about software development, management, business, and the Internet on this site. For my day job, I run Fog Creek Software, makers of FogBugz—the smart bug tracking software with the stupid name, and Fog Creek Copilot—the easiest way to provide remote tech support over the Internet, with nothing to install or configure.

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