Who's your favorite founder and why? 😎
Frank Sondors
27 replies
For me, it's a guy named Marko Lazic who's building luccid.ai, which allows you to design your dream home. The reason why it's Marko is that he had to overcome a lot of challenges to get to where he is now and he's also building a kickass product to disrupt an old-school industry.
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Shyam Prasad Reddy@shyam_prasad_reddy
I have many favorites. To name a few.. Ratan Tata, Ashok Soota, Melanie Perkins, Sridhar Vembu, Nithin Kamath, and of course Larry Page & Sergey Brin!
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I had the privilege of being part of Honey in its early days, and I have immense respect for George Ruan, the CEO and founder. One of his notable insights about a growth model is that it should encompass three essential elements simultaneously: repeatability, scalability, and automation. Although I wish I could have stayed longer at Honey and continued learning from him, my entrepreneurial drive led me on my own journey, but George Ruan remains an exceptional figure in my eyes.
Founder should be the one who inspires their employees daily, he/she should be the source of motivation for employees + he/she should treat employees as co-workers, not as a slave, enough in the tough times. That's what makes a founder!
Booomerang
Like other replies in this thread, your favorite founder will come down to who you've met and worked with. And I have to agree with others when they said their favorite founder is someone who's personality translates to creating an amazing, super fun work environment.
Sridhar Vembu, the only dude that bootstrapped his company to global giant of 1 billion in revenue without raising single dollar. Had chance to talk to him few times, really the legend of entrepreneurship who you can't find anywhere in the startup news...
@vladimir_zivkovic , and he truly is so down-to-earth and such a good human, from what I know. We're from the same state if that matters. :) Btw, I know that Sridhar Vembu's bootstrapped Zoho crossed $1B in net revenue. But is he the only person to bootstrap and build the company to $1B in revenue?
@senthil99nathan I believe he is, if we talk about tech startups. Yeah he is very down to earth, whenever you see him you will never say he is a billionaire. Very kind and polite. He is from Tamil Nadu, Chennai?
Humbird AI
@senthil99nathan @vladimir_zivkovic Sridhar is from Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu. He started Adventnet from Chennai in 1996/97 which got later rebranded to Zoho in 2005/06.
P.S., Proud Zoho Alumni here
There are many. Just from my knowledge, to name a few:
Sridhar Vembu & Nithin Kamath - Indian founders who proved that fundraising from VC is not the only way to build big companies.
Steve Jobs - For building one of the biggest tech companies even though being a non-tech founder.
3Common
Ed Catmull from Pixar - read “Creativity Inc.” if you wanna change the way you think about org structure and creativity
i really like daniel ek, the founder of spotify, he made such a great product and the story behind the company is just amazing
Definitely Ratan Tata! His inspiring leadership, strong ethics, and remarkable philanthropic efforts have made him my favorite founder. He's a true role model for entrepreneurs, and his impact goes far beyond business.
@noahkagan ! Unique style and he is always different
Burnout Bot
Melanie Perkins! She built canva at age 19 with basically zero tech experience. Her HIBT episode is amazing.
For me @trungdq88 , he inspired me via the launch of Typing Mind just mindblowing
Felix Lee!
CEO and founder of ADPList
His life behind ADPList was so inspiring, from nobody to somebody with impactful product.
Building endless ecosystem in edtech education where mentee meets their mentor. Break the exclusivity tech industry into more inclusive, open all the access to meet their best mentor freely. The universe owe to his kindness.
Elon Musk!
Brian Chesky!
My founder😅
Myself) We should respect ourselves the first and not try to find idols or so:)
Xence by Gaspar AI
Nike's Phil Knight - did not know the story, read the book, was amazed by how he started it, with no experience, the risks he took, the belief and trust he had in what he was doing, how he never gave up, how he built his team, the whole story is amazing! I specifically appreciate how he recognizes that he was wrong at times and that he mistreated some team members or disapproved of certain actions that proved to be key to Nike's success, and that luck is also important on top of skills and persistence.
@marilena_n Doubing it, I even questioned myself if I could/want to go through his entire journey full of challanges he has faced where his business was som many times on the edge.
@profy17 , you are creeping up on my list, haha!
Appreciate how active and helpful you are on PH.
My top two are tied for first: Kevin Rose and Tim Ferriss.
I've been following them closely since around 2006-2008.
Kevin's Diggnation podcast was probably the first podcast I got into - I probably found it because I was on digg.com a lot back in those days.
And Tim's blog became something I read regularly after stumbling across it a handful of times for one reason or another.
Their journeys as entrepreneurs have been fun to watch, and fun to be a part of, as they're both into a lot of the same things I'm into, and they continue to create products that I love.
Their content is helpful. They're both visionaries. They've both helped me tremendously! They've honestly changed my life.
I'll check out Marko and liccid.ai ! 🤝🍻
NotesNudge
there's a certain admiration that brews within when we observe someone shaping the world against the odds, isn't there? marko's journey, as you've described, beautifully embodies the spirit of tenacity and innovation.
i, too, have a favorite founder who brings a similar zest for creation and disruption - Stewart Butterfield, the co-founder of Slack. the path that led him to Slack was a meandering one, a game called 'game neverending' which 'ended', then flickr, which was a side-gig turned big.
but what fascinates me is not just his journey, but his philosophy. Stewart's vision is that work can be less tedious and more humane. Slack, at its core, is designed to make work communication smoother, lighter, and less of a burden. it’s a vision that transcends the product, speaks to our work lives, and ripples out to affect our overall wellbeing.
his approach to failure, too, is worth noting. he sees it as part of the process, not a dead-end. it’s this capacity to pivot, to take an unexpected turn and find new vistas that i find most inspiring.
indeed, every founder's story carries its unique flavor, its lessons. they remind us that no journey is straight, that stumbling blocks can be stepping stones, and that a vision rooted in enriching human experience holds transformative power.