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Founders at work

14 May 2026

Q. Out of 32 interviews, how many are technical person?

In Founders at Work, roughly 26–28 out of the 32 interviewees were strongly technical founders — programmers, engineers, or people deeply involved in building the product themselves.

Examples include:

• Steve Wozniak (Ch. 3)
• Paul Graham (Ch. 15)
• David Heinemeier Hansson (Ch. 23)
• Max Levchin (Ch. 1)
• Joel Spolsky (Ch. 25)

Only a small minority were primarily business/investment-oriented rather than hands-on technical builders.

Q. Who are non-technical?

The clearly non-technical or less-technical people in Founders at Work were roughly:

• Ann Winblad — more business/investing oriented.
• Tim Brady — business/operations side rather than engineering.
• Caterina Fake — product/community/design oriented, not mainly technical.
• James Currier — more product/business focused.
• Bob Davis — business/media side.
• Possibly Craig Newmark depending on definition — he did technical work early on, but is not viewed as a hardcore engineer in the same way as Wozniak or Levchin.

Almost everyone else in the book was strongly engineering/programming oriented. That’s one reason the book became so popular among developers and technical founders.

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