April 2009  
  
 _Inc_ recently asked me who I thought were the 5 most interesting startup
founders of the last 30 years. How do you decide who's the most interesting?
The best test seemed to be influence: who are the 5 who've influenced me most?
Who do I use as examples when I'm talking to companies we fund? Who do I find
myself quoting?  
  
**1\. Steve Jobs**  
  
I'd guess Steve is the most influential founder not just for me but for most
people you could ask. A lot of startup culture is Apple culture. He was the
original young founder. And while the concept of "insanely great" already
existed in the arts, it was a novel idea to introduce into a company in the
1980s.  
  
More remarkable still, he's stayed interesting for 30 years. People await new
Apple products the way they'd await new books by a popular novelist. Steve may
not literally design them, but they wouldn't happen if he weren't CEO.  
  
Steve is clever and driven, but so are a lot of people in the Valley. What
makes him unique is his [sense of design](taste.html). Before him, most
companies treated design as a frivolous extra. Apple's competitors now know
better.  
  
**2\. TJ Rodgers**  
  
TJ Rodgers isn't as famous as Steve Jobs, but he may be the best writer among
Silicon Valley CEOs. I've probably learned more from him about the startup way
of thinking than from anyone else. Not so much from specific things he's
written as by reconstructing the mind that produced them: brutally candid;
aggressively garbage-collecting outdated ideas; and yet driven by pragmatism
rather than ideology.  
  
The first essay of his that I read was so electrifying that I remember exactly
where I was at the time. It was [High Technology Innovation: Free Markets or
Government Subsidies?](http://www.cypress.com/?rID=34993) and I was downstairs
in the Harvard Square T Station. It felt as if someone had flipped on a light
switch inside my head.  
  
**3\. Larry & Sergey**  
  
I'm sorry to treat Larry and Sergey as one person. I've always thought that
was unfair to them. But it does seem as if Google was a collaboration.  
  
Before Google, companies in Silicon Valley already knew it was important to
have the best hackers. So they claimed, at least. But Google pushed this idea
further than anyone had before. Their hypothesis seems to have been that, in
the initial stages at least, _all_ you need is good hackers: if you hire all
the smartest people and put them to work on a problem where their success can
be measured, you win. All the other stuff—which includes all the stuff that
business schools think business consists of—you can figure out along the way.
The results won't be perfect, but they'll be optimal. If this was their
hypothesis, it's now been verified experimentally.  
  
**4\. Paul Buchheit**  
  
Few know this, but one person, Paul Buchheit, is responsible for three of the
best things Google has done. He was the original author of GMail, which is the
most impressive thing Google has after search. He also wrote the first
prototype of AdSense, and was the author of Google's mantra "Don't be evil."  
  
PB made a point in a talk once that I now mention to every startup we fund:
that it's better, initially, to make a small number of users really love you
than a large number kind of like you. If I could tell startups only [ten
sentences](13sentences.html), this would be one of them.  
  
Now he's cofounder of a startup called Friendfeed. It's only a year old, but
already everyone in the Valley is watching them. Someone responsible for three
of the biggest ideas at Google is going to come up with more.  
  
**5\. Sam Altman**  
  
I was told I shouldn't mention founders of YC-funded companies in this list.
But Sam Altman can't be stopped by such flimsy rules. If he wants to be on
this list, he's going to be.  
  
Honestly, Sam is, along with Steve Jobs, the founder I refer to most when I'm
advising startups. On questions of design, I ask "What would Steve do?" but on
questions of strategy or ambition I ask "What would Sama do?"  
  
What I learned from meeting Sama is that the doctrine of the elect applies to
startups. It applies way less than most people think: startup investing does
not consist of trying to pick winners the way you might in a horse race. But
there are a few people with such force of will that they're going to get
whatever they want.  
  

