I’ve always been very interested in the history of the technology industry. An integral part of that history are the stories of the entrepreneurs who have successfully built the companies whose services we use or have heard about. Founders at Work is the first book in the “how they did it” genre of books that I read. There is a lot of wisdom to be gleaned from the experiences of people who have been successful at something, and Founders at Work did not disappoint. Though each journey is unique in its own way and there is never a recipe for success, irrespective of how one might define it, some qualities do come through. Some of my take aways were the perseverance, never give up attitude and realisation that one needs to constantly put themselves outside their zone of comfort to achieve something out of the ordinary. If it was easy, everyone would do it. Of course, some luck helps too.

I read Founders at Work some time last year, but pulled it out again after I came across two books in the same genre today. One is Entrepreneur Journeys by Sramana Mitra, and the other is Stay Hungry Stay Foolish by Rashmi Bansal. I’ve been reading their blogs for a long time now, and should enjoy the books too. But, they aren’t available on Flipkart (my online bookstore of choice these days), or a few other online stores I looked at. I’ll definitely keep an eye out though.