Download or read book The Founders written by Jimmy Soni and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2022 BY THE NEW YORKER National Bestseller * New York Times Editors’ Choice * Financial Times “Books to Read in 2022” A SABEW BEST IN BUSINESS BOOK AWARDS FINALIST “A gripping account of PayPal’s origins and a vivid portrait of the geeks and contrarians who made its meteoric rise possible” (The Wall Street Journal)—including Elon Musk, Amy Rowe Klement, Peter Thiel, Julie Anderson, Max Levchin, Reid Hoffman, and many others whose stories have never been shared. Today, PayPal’s founders and earliest employees are considered the technology industry’s most powerful network. Since leaving PayPal, they have formed, funded, and advised the leading companies of our era, including Tesla, Facebook, YouTube, SpaceX, Yelp, Palantir, and LinkedIn, among many others. As a group, they have driven twenty-first-century innovation and entrepreneurship. Their names stir passions; they’re as controversial as they are admired. Yet for all their influence, the story of where they first started has gone largely untold. Before igniting the commercial space race or jumpstarting social media’s rise, they were the unknown creators of a scrappy online payments start-up called PayPal. In building what became one of the world’s foremost companies, they faced bruising competition, internal strife, the emergence of widespread online fraud, and the devastating dot-com bust of the 2000s. Their success was anything but certain. In The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley, award-winning author and biographer Jimmy Soni explores PayPal’s turbulent early days. With hundreds of interviews and unprecedented access to thousands of pages of internal material, he shows how the seeds of so much of what shapes our world today—fast-scaling digital start-ups, cashless currency concepts, mobile money transfer—were planted two decades ago. He also reveals the stories of countless individuals who were left out of the front-page features and banner headlines but who were central to PayPal’s success. Described as “an intensely magnetic chronicle” (The New York Times) and “engrossing” (Business Insider), The Founders is a story of iteration and inventiveness—the products of which have cast a long and powerful shadow over modern life. This narrative illustrates how this rare assemblage of talent came to work together and how their collaboration changed our world forever.
Download or read book Founders at Work written by Jessica Livingston and published by Apress. This book was released on 2008-11-01 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now available in paperback—with a new preface and interview with Jessica Livingston about Y Combinator! Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days is a collection of interviews with founders of famous technology companies about what happened in the very earliest days. These people are celebrities now. What was it like when they were just a couple friends with an idea? Founders like Steve Wozniak (Apple), Caterina Fake (Flickr), Mitch Kapor (Lotus), Max Levchin (PayPal), and Sabeer Bhatia (Hotmail) tell you in their own words about their surprising and often very funny discoveries as they learned how to build a company. Where did they get the ideas that made them rich? How did they convince investors to back them? What went wrong, and how did they recover? Nearly all technical people have thought of one day starting or working for a startup. For them, this book is the closest you can come to being a fly on the wall at a successful startup, to learn how it's done. But ultimately these interviews are required reading for anyone who wants to understand business, because startups are business reduced to its essence. The reason their founders become rich is that startups do what businesses do—create value—more intensively than almost any other part of the economy. How? What are the secrets that make successful startups so insanely productive? Read this book, and let the founders themselves tell you.
Download or read book The Founder s Bible written by David Barton and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 2184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book American Dialogue written by Joseph J. Ellis and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The award-winning author of Founding Brothers and The Quartet now gives us a deeply insightful examination of the relevance of the views of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams to some of the most divisive issues in America today. The story of history is a ceaseless conversation between past and present, and in American Dialogue Joseph J. Ellis focuses the conversation on the often-asked question "What would the Founding Fathers think?" He examines four of our most seminal historical figures through the prism of particular topics, using the perspective of the present to shed light on their views and, in turn, to make clear how their now centuries-old ideas illuminate the disturbing impasse of today's political conflicts. He discusses Jefferson and the issue of racism, Adams and the specter of economic inequality, Washington and American imperialism, Madison and the doctrine of original intent. Through these juxtapositions--and in his hallmark dramatic and compelling narrative voice--Ellis illuminates the obstacles and pitfalls paralyzing contemporary discussions of these fundamentally important issues.
Download or read book Fears of a Setting Sun written by Dennis C. Rasmussen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The surprising story of how George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson came to despair for the future of the nation they had created Americans seldom deify their Founding Fathers any longer, but they do still tend to venerate the Constitution and the republican government that the founders created. Strikingly, the founders themselves were far less confident in what they had wrought, particularly by the end of their lives. In fact, most of them—including George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson—came to deem America’s constitutional experiment an utter failure that was unlikely to last beyond their own generation. Fears of a Setting Sun is the first book to tell the fascinating and too-little-known story of the founders’ disillusionment. As Dennis Rasmussen shows, the founders’ pessimism had a variety of sources: Washington lost his faith in America’s political system above all because of the rise of partisanship, Hamilton because he felt that the federal government was too weak, Adams because he believed that the people lacked civic virtue, and Jefferson because of sectional divisions laid bare by the spread of slavery. The one major founder who retained his faith in America’s constitutional order to the end was James Madison, and the book also explores why he remained relatively optimistic when so many of his compatriots did not. As much as Americans today may worry about their country’s future, Rasmussen reveals, the founders faced even graver problems and harbored even deeper misgivings. A vividly written account of a chapter of American history that has received too little attention, Fears of a Setting Sun will change the way that you look at the American founding, the Constitution, and indeed the United States itself.
Download or read book The Founders Revolution written by Michael S. Law and published by Morgan James Publishing. This book was released on 2018-01-02 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A historian’s “revealing and much-needed retelling of the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the events that led up to it” (William D. Watkins, author of The New Absolutes). Tying American history to our current political climate, The Founders’ Revolution is designed to help readers understand the principles embedded in the Declaration of Independence. The book unpacks the intent of the Founding Fathers in drafting the document, and the historical circumstances surrounding its development. Every charge and every paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is discussed with supporting evidence coming from the original words of the Founding Fathers and other original source documents. The Founders’ Revolution also makes astute comparisons between actions taken by America’s current federal government and those taken by the King of England at the time of the Declaration, showing how our founding document and its principles are still applicable today. In this revealing history, readers will rediscover the forgotten treasures of the Declaration of Independence, recognizing the dedication of the Founding Fathers to the principles written down.
Download or read book E Pluribus ONE written by Sophia A. Nelson and published by Center Street. This book was released on 2017-01-17 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our Founders understood that America was the greatest experiment on earth. And they sealed it with these words: E pluribus Unum: "Out of Many We Are One." "America is the story of us. And us isn't doing so great right now." Says award winning journalist and author Sophia A. Nelson. Coming on the heels of the raucous and divisive 2016 general election campaign, Nelson attempts to give the nation an inspirational charge and lift by helping us to reclaim our founders' vision for a united and strong America. Nelson reminds us that "we the people" are charged by our founders' to cherish life, liberty, freedom and equality, as well as to safeguard the nation from intrusive governance. The founders' also charged our leaders to be moral, virtuous, patriotic servants of the people. In this groundbreaking book, Nelson challenges us to live out the call of our founding: We are ONE America. We are ONE People. We are ONE nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Pulling from our founding fathers' core principles of liberty, citizenship, morals, virtues, civic engagement, equality, self-governance, and, when required, civil disobedience, Nelson calls us to a higher standard. She calls us to purpose. And she calls us to rediscover the things that unite us, not divide us. One is a book that all Americans, regardless of political party, race, religion, or gender can embrace and share with their children and grandchildren for generations. It is a reminder simply of what makes America great and what makes us the envy of the world. Alexis de Tocqueville said it best: "America is great because America is good. If America ever ceases to be good, it will cease to be great." Nelson takes us on a historical, yet very inspirational journey of not just our founding values, but the men and women who walked them out and brought America to be the great light it is in the world over the past 240 years.
Download or read book Founding Gardeners written by Andrea Wulf and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-04-03 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of The Invention of Nature, a fascinating look at the Founding Fathers like none you've seen before. “Illuminating and engrossing.... The reader relives the first decades of the Republic ... through the words of the statesmen themselves.” —The New York Times Book Review For the Founding Fathers, gardening, agriculture, and botany were elemental passions: a conjoined interest as deeply ingrained in their characters as the battle for liberty and a belief in the greatness of their new nation. Founding Gardeners is an exploration of that obsession, telling the story of the revolutionary generation from the unique perspective of their lives as gardeners, plant hobbyists, and farmers. Acclaimed historian Andrea Wulf describes how George Washington wrote letters to his estate manager even as British warships gathered off Staten Island; how a tour of English gardens renewed Thomas Jefferson’s and John Adams’s faith in their fledgling nation; and why James Madison is the forgotten father of environmentalism. Through these and other stories, Wulf reveals a fresh, nuanced portrait of the men who created our nation.
Download or read book Written Out of History written by Mike Lee and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-05-30 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! Some of America’s most important founders have been erased from our history books. In the fight to restore the true meaning of the Constitution, their stories must be told. In the earliest days of our nation, a handful of unsung heroes—including women, slaves, and an Iroquois chief—made crucial contributions to our republic. They pioneered the ideas that led to the Bill of Rights, the separation of powers, and the abolition of slavery. Yet, their faces haven’t been printed on our currency or carved into any cliffs. Instead, they were marginalized, silenced, or forgotten—sometimes by an accident of history, sometimes by design. In the thick of the debates over the Constitution, some founders warned about the dangers of giving too much power to the central government. Though they did not win every battle, these anti-Federalists and their allies managed to insert a system of checks and balances to protect the people from an intrusive federal government. Other forgotten figures were not politicians themselves, but by their thoughts and actions influenced America’s story. Yet successive generations have forgotten their message, leading to the creation of a vast federal bureaucracy that our founders would not recognize and did not want. Senator Mike Lee, one of the most consistent and impassioned opponents of an abusive federal government, tells the story of liberty’s forgotten heroes. In these pages, you’ll learn the true stories of founders such as... • Aaron Burr who is depicted in the popular musical Hamilton and in history books as a villain, but in reality was a far more complicated figure who fought the abuse of executive power. • Mercy Otis Warren, one of the most prominent female writers in the Revolution and a protégé of John Adams, who engaged in vigorous debates against the encroachment of federal power and ultimately broke with Adams over her fears of the Constitution. • Canasatego, an Iroquois chief whose words taught Benjamin Franklin the basic principles behind the separation of powers. The popular movement that swept Republicans into power in 2010 and 2016 was led by Americans who rediscovered the majesty of the Constitution and knew the stories of Hamilton, Madison, and Washington. But we should also know the names of the contrarians who argued against them and who have been written out of history. If we knew of the heroic fights of these lost founders, we’d never have ended up with a government too big, too powerful, and too unresponsive to its citizens. The good news is that it’s not too late to rememberand to return to our first principles. Restoring the memory of these lost individuals will strike a crippling blow against big government.
Download or read book The Founders Fortunes written by Willard Sterne Randall and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-02-08 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illuminating financial history of the Founding Fathers, revealing how their personal finances shaped the Constitution and the new nation In 1776, upon the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers concluded America’s most consequential document with a curious note, pledging “our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” Lives and honor did indeed hang in the balance, yet just what were their fortunes? How much did the Founders stand to gain or lose through independence? And what lingering consequences did their respective financial stakes have on liberty, justice, and the fate of the fledgling United States of America? In this landmark account, historian Willard Sterne Randall investigates the private financial affairs of the Founders, illuminating like never before how and why the Revolution came about. The Founders’ Fortunes uncovers how these leaders waged war, crafted a constitution, and forged a new nation influenced in part by their own financial interests. In an era where these very issues have become daily national questions, the result is a remarkable and insightful new understanding of our nation’s bedrock values.
Download or read book The New Founders written by Joseph F. Connor and published by . This book was released on 2012-10-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Joe Connor and Mike Duncan comes an entertaining, educational, emotional and inspiring original novel about the father of our country's miraculous run for president in 21st century America. In The New Founders, the authors bring George Washington back to life taking on today's issues as he seeks the presidency with the help of his 21st century founding brothers. Six unsuspecting patriots are drawn together in Philadelphia over the Independence Day weekend. Though having just met, the men seem uncannily familiar and immediately act as if they have known each other forever While touring Independence Hall the new friends encounter a mysterious man dressed in colonial garb who confirms to them their true identities. The men are overwhelmed by the evidence that they are the reincarnates of our founding fathers, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Hamilton and John and Sam Adams, brought together by Providence and the mysterious man who they come to accept as none other than George Washington. After their soul searching and self doubt subsides, the New Founders and their leader General Washington embark on an educational, emotional and often humorous journey to our nation's capital in search of Providence's intentions for them. On the way, The New Founders present a crash course on U.S. history to the father of our country, introducing him to and reminding the reader of the marvels of 21st century America that so many of us now take for granted. Washington, shaken by learning of the horrors of the Civil War, finds himself drawn to the Lincoln Memorial and the humble strength of President Abraham Lincoln. After his spontaneous speech extolling Lincoln's strength and our constitutional values on the steps of the Memorial creates a national sensation, radio talk show host Josh Anders and the other New Founders, realizing Providence's intentions, convince Washington to run for president. The New Founders build Washington's platform based on our principles of Life, Liberty, Property and the Pursuit of Happiness, all of which are defined in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. In doing so, they engage the reader by debating the major issues of today using the timeless, actual words and broad ranging ideas of the founders themselves. Candidate Washington, using a cleverly contrived alias, combats a snarling press obsessed with his destruction and an arrogant incumbent president bent on controlling the American people. Washington ultimately vanquishes these 21stcentury rivals buoyed by an electorate starved for a candidate who not only believes in them and their principles, but can plainly articulate the greatness of our society. The reader will realize that many of today's challenges are the very same as those our country faced during the American Revolution and can only be solved by adherence to our enduring constitutional principles. The New Founders is sure to be an emotional, entertaining and inspiring whirlwind ride through American History and into our future.
Download or read book Founding Brothers written by Joseph J. Ellis and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2002-02-05 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A landmark work of history explores how a group of greatly gifted but deeply flawed individuals—Hamilton, Burr, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams, and Madison—confronted the overwhelming challenges before them to set the course for our nation. “A splendid book—humane, learned, written with flair and radiant with a calm intelligence and wit.” —The New York Times Book Review The United States was more a fragile hope than a reality in 1790. During the decade that followed, the Founding Fathers—re-examined here as Founding Brothers—combined the ideals of the Declaration of Independence with the content of the Constitution to create the practical workings of our government. Through an analysis of six fascinating episodes—Hamilton and Burr’s deadly duel, Washington’s precedent-setting Farewell Address, Adams’ administration and political partnership with his wife, the debate about where to place the capital, Franklin’s attempt to force Congress to confront the issue of slavery and Madison’s attempts to block him, and Jefferson and Adams’ famous correspondence—Founding Brothers brings to life the vital issues and personalities from the most important decade in our nation’s history.
Download or read book First Principles written by Thomas E. Ricks and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller Editors' Choice —New York Times Book Review "Ricks knocks it out of the park with this jewel of a book. On every page I learned something new. Read it every night if you want to restore your faith in our country." —James Mattis, General, U.S. Marines (ret.) & 26th Secretary of Defense The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author offers a revelatory new book about the founding fathers, examining their educations and, in particular, their devotion to the ancient Greek and Roman classics—and how that influence would shape their ideals and the new American nation. On the morning after the 2016 presidential election, Thomas Ricks awoke with a few questions on his mind: What kind of nation did we now have? Is it what was designed or intended by the nation’s founders? Trying to get as close to the source as he could, Ricks decided to go back and read the philosophy and literature that shaped the founders’ thinking, and the letters they wrote to each other debating these crucial works—among them the Iliad, Plutarch’s Lives, and the works of Xenophon, Epicurus, Aristotle, Cato, and Cicero. For though much attention has been paid the influence of English political philosophers, like John Locke, closer to their own era, the founders were far more immersed in the literature of the ancient world. The first four American presidents came to their classical knowledge differently. Washington absorbed it mainly from the elite culture of his day; Adams from the laws and rhetoric of Rome; Jefferson immersed himself in classical philosophy, especially Epicureanism; and Madison, both a groundbreaking researcher and a deft politician, spent years studying the ancient world like a political scientist. Each of their experiences, and distinctive learning, played an essential role in the formation of the United States. In examining how and what they studied, looking at them in the unusual light of the classical world, Ricks is able to draw arresting and fresh portraits of men we thought we knew. First Principles follows these four members of the Revolutionary generation from their youths to their adult lives, as they grappled with questions of independence, and forming and keeping a new nation. In doing so, Ricks interprets not only the effect of the ancient world on each man, and how that shaped our constitution and government, but offers startling new insights into these legendary leaders.
Download or read book Founding Myths written by Ray Raphael and published by New Press, The. This book was released on 2014-07-04 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published ten years ago, award-winning historian Ray Raphael’s Founding Myths has since established itself as a landmark of historical myth-busting. With the author’s trademark wit and flair, Founding Myths exposes the errors and inventions in America’s most cherished tales, from Paul Revere’s famous ride to Patrick Henry’s “Liberty or Death” speech. For the seventy thousand readers who have been captivated by Raphael’s eye-opening accounts, history has never been the same. In this revised tenth-anniversary edition, Raphael revisits the original myths and explores their further evolution over the past decade, uncovering new stories and peeling back additional layers of misinformation. This new edition also examines the highly politicized debates over America’s past, as well as how school textbooks and popular histories often reinforce rather than correct historical mistakes. A book that “explores the truth behind the stories of the making of our nation” (National Public Radio), this revised edition of Founding Myths will be a welcome resource for anyone seeking to separate historical fact from fiction.
Download or read book Founding Faith written by Steven Waldman and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2009-03-10 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The culture wars have distorted the dramatic story of how Americans came to worship freely. Many activists on the right maintain that the United States was founded as a “Christian nation.” Many on the left contend that the First Amendment was designed to boldly separate church and state. Neither of these claims is true, argues Beliefnet.com editor in chief Steven Waldman. With refreshing objectivity, Waldman narrates the real story of how our nation’s Founders forged a new approach to religious liberty. Founding Faith vividly describes the religious development of five Founders. Benjamin Franklin melded the Puritan theology of his youth and the Enlightenment philosophy of his adulthood. John Adams’s pungent views on religion stoked his revolutionary fervor and shaped his political strategy. George Washington came to view religious tolerance as a military necessity. Thomas Jefferson pursued a dramatic quest to “rescue” Jesus, in part by editing the Bible. Finally, it was James Madison who crafted an integrated vision of how to prevent tyranny while encouraging religious vibrancy. The spiritual custody battle over the Founding Fathers and the role of religion in America continues today. Waldman at last sets the record straight, revealing the real history of religious freedom to be dramatic, unexpected, paradoxical, and inspiring.
Download or read book Rome s Last Citizen written by Rob Goodman and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-10-16 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This biography of Marcus Cato the Younger -- Rome's bravest statesman, an aristocratic soldier, a Stoic philosopher, and staunch defender of sacred Roman tradition -- is rich with resonances for current politics and contemporary notions of freedom.
Download or read book Get Your Startup Story Straight written by David Riemer and published by Greenleaf Book Group. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE HOW-TO GUIDE FOR INNOVATORS TO IMPROVE THEIR IDEAS AND SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCH THEM THROUGH THE POWER OF NARRATIVE In a world that’s been turned upside down by a pandemic, social upheavals, environmental disasters, and economic disruptions, the need for reinvention is paramount. While many entrepreneurs and innovators have brilliant ideas, they desperately need the skills to successfully articulate their vision to investors, prospective customers, employees, and stakeholders. In this informative and empowering book, David Riemer breaks down the storytelling clutter so you can gain the attention you need to be successful. Storytelling is foundational. If you have a groundbreaking invention in mind or have a plan to solve worldwide problems, Get Your Startup Story Straight is the tool you need to create better customer-focused solutions, motivate more backers to your project, and ultimately dominate in the market. Broken down into three acts, this book will allow you to discover the building blocks of your narrative, the storytelling techniques to convey your ideas clearly, and the archetypes for inspiration. The author’s own words tell it all: “Innovators are ubiquitous nowadays, and for this community, storytelling is essential.” If you are a creator struggling to get others on board, this is the handbook to refine your story to guide your product strategy, shape your company, and ultimately improve lives.
