Sublime

His firm, TVI, had funded Microsoft, Compaq, and other notable technology companies, but it was not these that McMurtry wished to talk about. Rather, he wanted to talk about the companies that did not succeed. He recalled that in the mid-1970s, having been in the business a number of years, he had become depressed because “out of ten start-ups, we

Your partner’s purpose is not to be value-add forever. As your company grows, you will likely find people with far greater skills whom you will hire. That’s okay. Your co-founder’s purpose is to help you achieve success in your march to product-market fit.

Livingston: What advice would you give to a young programmer who's thinking of starting a startup? Levchin: Try to have a good cofounder. I think it's all about people, and, if you are doing it completely alone, it's really hard. It's not impossible, in particular if you are a loner and introverted type, but it's still really hard.

Koum and Acton had already raised $250,000 in seed funding from a few ex-Yahoo employees, but they saw VC funding as a bailout. Still, Goetz was persistent. He assured the founders that he would act as a strategic advisor, helping them turn WhatsApp into the powerhouse he knew it could be. Eventually, Koum and Acton agreed to take $8 million from S

AT&T’s savior was Theodore Vail, who became its president in 1907, just a few years after Millikan’s friend Frank Jewett joined the company.11 In appearance, Vail seemed almost a caricature of a Gilded Age executive: Rotund and jowly, with a white walrus mustache, round spectacles, and a sweep of silver hair, he carried forth a magisterial conf