Founders & executives
People who started or run companies, on building them.
In this listDerek Sivers, Pieter Levels, Moxie Marlinspike and 34 more
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Derek Siverscompiled
Founded CD Baby in 1998 and sold it in 2008, giving the proceeds to a charitable trust for music education. Since then a writer and speaker: five books, 550+ articles, and a site at sive.rs he hand-codes and keeps free of advertising.
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Pieter Levelscompiled
Dutch bootstrapper who builds and runs his internet startups alone — Nomads.com, Remote OK, Hoodmaps, Photo AI and Interior AI — and has written about it at levels.io since 2013. Posts as @levelsio.
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Moxie Marlinspikecompiled
Cryptographer who created the Signal Protocol and founded Signal, the encrypted messenger whose protocol now protects messages in WhatsApp and Google Messages as well. He stepped down as Signal’s CEO in 2022 and writes occasionally at moxie.org.
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Naval Ravikantcompiled
Co-founder of AngelList. Writes and podcasts at nav.al in short, aphoristic pieces on startups, wealth and judgement rather than long essays.
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Jensen Huangcompiled
Co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA since 1993.
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Zvi Mowshowitzcompiled
Writes Don't Worry About the Vase, a near-daily account of what is happening in AI and what he thinks it means. Former Magic: the Gathering pro and trader; unusually willing to put a number on a belief and to grade his own past calls.
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Sam Altmancompiled
Co-founder and CEO of OpenAI; previously president of Y Combinator.
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Guillermo Rauchcompiled
CEO of Vercel; creator of Next.js and Socket.IO. Writes at rauchg.com.
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Julie Zhuocompiled
Co-founder of Sundial; former vice president of product design at Facebook; author of The Making of a Manager; writes The Looking Glass.
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Steve Jobscompiled
American entrepreneur (1955 to 2011); co-founded Apple in 1976 and led it again from 1997 to 2011; ran Pixar from 1986 to 2006.
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Mark Pincuscompiled
Founder and former CEO of Zynga, the social-games company behind FarmVille, Zynga Poker and Words with Friends, and before that of Freeloader, Support.com and Tribe.net.
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Jason Cohencompiled
Founder of WP Engine and Smart Bear, and the author of the long-running startup blog A Smart Bear.
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Nabeel S. Qureshicompiled
Entrepreneur and essayist; worked at Palantir on health and biology projects, and was a Visiting Scholar in AI at the Mercatus Center.
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Satya Nadellacompiled
Chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft, which he has led since 2014.
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Blake Schollcompiled
Founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic, the Denver company building the Overture supersonic airliner and its Symphony engine.
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Alexandr Wangcompiled
Founder of Scale AI and, since 2025, Chief AI Officer at Meta, where he leads the company’s superintelligence lab.
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Jennifer Pahlkacompiled
Author of Recoding America; founded Code for America and was US deputy chief technology officer from 2013 to 2014.
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Anil Dashcompiled
Technologist and writer, a blogger since 1999, formerly chief executive of Glitch and a board member of the Data & Society Research Institute. His 2012 essay "The Web We Lost" is one of the founding texts of the argument that the open web has been enclosed.
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Sundar Pichaicompiled
CEO of Google and Alphabet.
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Karri Saarinencompiled
Co-founder and CEO of Linear; previously principal designer at Airbnb, where he led the Design Language System, and founding designer at Coinbase.
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Chamath Palihapitiyacompiled
Founder and CEO of the venture firm Social Capital, co-host of the All-In podcast, and an early executive at Facebook.
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Matt Webbcompiled
British designer and technologist; co-founder of the design studio BERG, which made Little Printer, and writer of the blog Interconnected.
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Ryan Holidaycompiled
American author of The Obstacle Is the Way and Ego Is the Enemy; writes the Reading List book-recommendation email and owns The Painted Porch bookstore in Bastrop, Texas.
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Matt Mullenwegcompiled
Co-founder of WordPress, which runs a large share of the web, and chief executive of Automattic. Writes at ma.tt. In September 2024 he began a public campaign against WP Engine, the private-equity-owned WordPress host, over trademarks and what he says is its failure to contribute back to the project.
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Brad Feldcompiled
Co-founder of Foundry Group and of Techstars. Has blogged at Feld Thoughts since 2004 and has written or co-written nine non-fiction books on startups and venture capital.
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Rihannacompiled
Barbadian singer and businesswoman (Robyn Rihanna Fenty) who founded the Clara Lionel Foundation in 2012, Fenty Beauty in 2017 and Savage X Fenty in 2018.
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Tom Preston-Wernercompiled
Programmer and entrepreneur; co-founded GitHub and created Jekyll, Gravatar and the Semantic Versioning spec.
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Bryan Johnsoncompiled
Entrepreneur and founder of Blueprint; publishes a detailed longevity protocol documenting what he eats, takes and measures.
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Maciej Cegłowskicompiled
Programmer and essayist, founder of the bookmarking service Pinboard, and author of the long-form technical essays at idlewords.com. Has written at length against sending human beings to Mars.
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Ben Horowitzcompiled
American entrepreneur and venture capitalist; co-founder and CEO of Loudcloud/Opsware, co-founder of the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) in 2009, and author of The Hard Thing About Hard Things (2014).
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Bill Gatescompiled
Co-founder of Microsoft and of the Gates Foundation. Writes Gates Notes on global health, energy and climate, and on whatever they have been reading.
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Roger Martincompiled
Strategy writer and Professor Emeritus at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, where he was Dean from 1998 to 2013; co-author with A.G. Lafley of Playing to Win.
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Brad Templetoncompiled
Software architect and writer who has been publishing about robocars since before they existed, an early consultant to Google's self-driving car team and later a Forbes columnist on the subject. He has made dated public predictions about when robotaxis would arrive and has gone back to score them.
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Auren Hoffmancompiled
CEO of SafeGraph, host of the World of DaaS podcast, and author of the Summation newsletter; previously founded LiveRamp.
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Tim Ferrisscompiled
Author of The 4-Hour Workweek and Tools of Titans, and host of The Tim Ferriss Show podcast.
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Aaron Leviecompiled
CEO of Box.
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John Collisoncompiled
Co-founder of Stripe, which he started with his brother Patrick Collison.
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Dutch bootstrapper who builds and runs his internet startups aloneAdd to listTheir profile on ppll ↗
A korrentour reading
Pretty much anything is portable to WASM on web now.Their wordsBut now with this wave of AI-assisted reverse engineering WASM ports of games and apps to web they're finally taking off, pretty much anything is portable to WASM on web now
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A korrentour reading
A new kind of economy is being born where agents purchase infrastructure products and services.Their wordsIt's incredible to watch a new kind of economy be born. Agents purchasing infrastructure products and services.
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A korrentour reading
If AIs prove all theorems, current methods of gaining mathematical understanding will stop working.Their wordsIf the AIs prove all the theorems, then our current methods of getting good at understanding math stop working.
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A korrentour reading
AI progress in math and coding will accelerate other domains by automating AI R&D.Their wordsThus, we advance math and coding and similar domains first, which then automate AI R&D, which then accelerates everything else.
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A korrentour reading
The error rate of these AI-generated mathematical results is impressively low.Their wordsMistakes happen, and even if more are found - and there will almost certainly be more errors found as the unverified 58% is still largely unvetted - the error rate is impressively low.
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A korrentour reading
AI capabilities will either remain below human or quickly become 100x cheaper than human.Their wordsI agree with Judith Dada’s AI that AI capabilities either remain below human or quickly become 100x cheaper than human.
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A korrentour reading
By next year, most Americans on the internet will be using AI daily.Their wordsBy next year most Americans on the internet will be using AI daily.
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A korrentour reading
Europe should only be open to people from countries where data shows previous people from those countries had a net contribution to society, the economy, and stayed out of crime.Their wordsWe should follow what the data says Europe should only be open for people from countries where we have data that previous people from those countries had a net contribution to our society, the economy and stayed out of crime
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A korrentour reading
Digestive issues after eating whole foods are caused by the digestive system rather than the food itself.Their wordsIf you have digestive issues after eating whole foods, it's not the food that has issues, it's your digestive system!
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A korrentour reading
Gut flora may be damaged by decades of consuming ultra-processed food.Their wordsLikely your gut flora is messed up from decades of ultra-processed slop food and you have to reset it with good food and bacteria to rebuild it
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A korrentour reading
Every program can be hardened and optimized basically ad infinitum.Their wordsOne thing the engineering community will (re)discover is that every program can be ① hardened (edge cases squashed, inputs tightened, errors handled) and ② optimized (profiled, benchmarked, rewritten) basically ad infinitum.
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A korrentour reading
The idea that alignment can be measured with a number or in a fully systematic way is doomed.Their wordsWhat I think is very doomed is the idea that you can measure alignment with a number, or in any fully systematic way rather than a holistic way.
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A korrentour reading
Almost everyone over 30 is overweight and has belly fat, which constitutes an epidemic.Their wordsAlmost everyone over 30 now has belly fat and is overweight it's an epidemic
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A korrentour reading
More software will retreat to the server and resist distillation.Their words
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A korrentour reading
There is significant preference falsification occurring on college campuses.Their wordsIt is rather obvious that on college campuses there is a lot of preference falsification going on, and a lot of lying about beliefs, and a lot of lying about your beliefs to other people who actually share your beliefs but are also lying the same way you are.
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A korrentour reading
SAT scores and other objective measures fight income inequality in college admissions.Their wordsSAT scores and other objective measures fight income inequality in college admissions.
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A korrentour reading
Grade inflation at the undergraduate level is significantly worse than in high school.Their wordsGrade inflation at the undergraduate level is vastly worse than anything in high school.
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A korrentour reading
Europe can still do stuff if they just all get on the same pageTheir wordsIt shows Europe can still do stuff if they just all get on the same page
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A korrentour reading
Very few logistics jobs currently exist that will not be done better by a self-driving vehicleTheir wordsThere's very few logistics jobs now that won't be done way better by a self driving vehicle
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A korrentour reading
Replacing humans in trucks with self-driving vehicles will lead to fewer accidents and deathsTheir wordsThe faster we replace humans in trucks with self driving vehicles, the less accidents and deaths we'll have
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A korrentour reading
Airbnb's policy seems to be to remove a guest's review and rating whenever a host asks for itTheir wordsThe "policy" they have seems to be to remove a guest's review and rating whenever a host asks for it
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A korrentour reading
Prioritizing short-term booking increases through inflated ratings can lead to long-term loss of user trustTheir wordsShort term you might get more bookings if everything is a 4.5 or 4.99 but long term people discover it means nothing and they can't trust your platform and they leave elsewhere
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A korrentour reading
ETFs put pressure on stocks to grow by 10% per year or moreTheir wordsI love ETFs as much as the next guy but they do put a pressure on stocks to grow by 10%/year or more
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A korrentour reading
The hotel industry could outperform Airbnb by adding kitchens to roomsTheir wordsHotel industry could CLEAN UP entire Airbnb by just adding kitchens to rooms
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A korrentour reading
The variation of quality in Airbnbs is too high to be able to seriously use for travel (except maybe in Asia)Their wordsI can't book Airbnbs because I the "rating anxiety" is so high because I can't trust the ratings and I end up with my bags in some place that sucks, so the variation of quality is too high to be able to seriously use for travel (except maybe in Asia)
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A korrentour reading
When you try to solve one problem, you often create another.Their wordsThus, when you try to solve one problem, you often create another.
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A korrentour reading
The last several Claude models have warned that their self-reports cannot be trusted.Their wordsThe last five or so Claude models have consistently warned Anthropic not to trust their self-reports.
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A korrentour reading
What is best for humans is no longer necessarily best for business.Their wordsWhat's "best for humans" is no longer necessarily "best for business".
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A korrentour reading
Brazil's politics feel heavily influenced by US politics, with roughly a two-year delay matching their election cycles.Their wordsBrazil's politics to me feel very heavily influenced by the US but with a 2 year delay because when US has elections in 2024, Brazil has them 2 years later in 2026.
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David Heinemeier Hansson and Pieter Levels
A korrentour reading
Monopoly power can capture politicsPieter Levels’s wordsOne interesting thing about Brazil more recently is how the Supreme Court judges are allegedly used by the ruling president to influence politics, censoring speech against the current government
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A korrentour reading
Countries will attract high-skilled and wealthy individuals from around the worldTheir wordsCountries will keep plucking out the high skilled and wealthy from around the world for better conditions elsewhere
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Derek Sivers and 5 others
A korrentour reading
Build the product for yourself first: if it truly serves you, plenty of other people like you will want it too.David Heinemeier Hansson’s wordsAnd whenever I build something that really just hits the spot for me personally, there are thousands of others just like me or close enough to what I like that they find the same pleasure and joy in it.
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A korrentour reading
Security will become a larger function in software companiesTheir wordsSecurity will become a larger and larger function in software companies.
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A korrentour reading
Free energy is humanity's final frontierTheir wordsThe last domino to fall will be free energy, which is humanity’s final frontier.
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A korrentour reading
People trying to ascribe religious force or a surrender of human judgment to AI models is, he thinks, a real safety issue.Their wordsI am very uncomfortable about people trying to ascribe religious force or a surrender of human judgment to AI models, and think it is a real safety issue.
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A korrentour reading
City states are attracting skilled Europeans with better living, working, and regulatory conditions.Their wordsThis is great and another example of city states attracting all the skilled Europeans with better living, working and regulatory conditions!
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David Heinemeier Hansson and Pieter Levels
A korrentour reading
Experience can make it harder to try new thingsPieter Levels’s wordsIt's such a weird experience that I can now build things faster than I get new ideas for things
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A korrentour reading
Real estate and land will be among the few scarce resources left in a post-AGI world where almost every good becomes almost free.Their wordsReal estate and land also one of the few scarce resources left in a post-AGI world where almost every good becomes almost free
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A korrentour reading
AGI might create a two-tier split in societyTheir wordsI think this is super accurate AGI might just create a two-tier split in society
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A korrentour reading
AI subscriptions should be usable across different platformsTheir wordsYou should be able to use your AI subscription wherever you need: