Paul Buchheit at Startup School 08
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZxP0i9ah8E" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZxP0i9ah8E</a><p>Sam Altman at Startup School 08
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m43t44WL8-w" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m43t44WL8-w</a>
That "TJ Rogers" article is reporting itself as "not found." (EDIT: Never mind, I tried again and it loaded.)<p>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 <i>addicted</i> users (Facebook?), and more constant activity.<p>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.
Interesting, I can kind of wish you talked about Sam Altman since we don't know too much about him other than Loopt.<p>Sounds like he's super motivated to win but I wish there was an example =)
Interview w/ TJ Rodgers. Lots about his solar company:<p><a href="http://fora.tv/2008/04/07/Uncommon_Knowledge_T_J__Rodgers#chapter_01" rel="nofollow">http://fora.tv/2008/04/07/Uncommon_Knowledge_T_J__Rodgers#ch...</a><p>Also worth noting that he has a highly technical background.
A brief Sam Altman story:<p>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).<p>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!<p>Needless to say, both Sam and Blake dropped out of school before the end of their Sophomore year.
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).
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.