Chapter 1

1. Howard H. Stevenson, “A Perspective on Entrepreneurship,” background note 384-131, Harvard Business School, Boston, October 1983. For an interesting commentary on the durability of this definition, see Thomas R. Eisenmann, “Entrepreneurship: A Working Definition,” Harvard Business Review, January 10, 2013, https://hbr.org/2013/01/what-is-entrepreneurship.

2. Biography.com, s.v. “Mark Cuban,” last updated August 22, 2016, www.biography.com/people/mark-cuban-562656#synopsis.

3. Quotes from Ben Weiss in this chapter come from our interview with him on May 17, 2015.

4. Oxford Dictionary of English, s.v. “dynamics” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

5. CPP, “History, Reliability and Validity of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) Instrument,” CPP, the People Development People, accessed November 15, 2016, www.cpp.com/products/mbti/mbti_info.aspx; DiSC Profile, “What Is DiSC®? The DiSC Personality Test Explained,” accessed November 15, 2016, www.discprofile.com/what-is-disc/overview/; Hogan Assessments, home page, accessed November 15, 2016, www.hoganassessments.com.

6. Geoffrey A. Moore, Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers (New York: HarperBusiness, 1999).

7. Throughout this book, you will read about highly successful business builders, most of whom we have personally interviewed. All of those builders have taken our Builder Personality Discovery questionnaire to determine their designated type. We also occasionally refer to other prominent and widely known entrepreneurs, both living and dead, to illustrate points along the way. In those cases, we have relied on publicly available and reputable sources, such as autobiographies, biographies, and contemporary media interviews to develop a sense of how those individuals probably map to our typology.

8. Harry McCracken, “How Facebook Keeps Scaling Its Culture,” Fast Company, November 24, 2015, www.fastcompany.com/3053776/behind-the-brand/how-facebook-keeps-scaling-its-culture.

9. David Packard, The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company (New York: HarperBusiness, 1995).

10. See, for example, Naomi L. Quenk, Beside Ourselves: Our Hidden Personality in Everyday Life (Palo Alto, CA: Davis-Black, 1993).

Chapter 2

1. Unless otherwise noted, material for this chapter relies on interviews we conducted with Ben Weiss, Rick Greenberg, Len Pagon, Bob Kocher, Howard Lerman, Mi Jong Lee, Steve Breitman, Adam Jackson, and Matt Blumberg between the spring and fall of 2015. Quotes from Laurie Spengler are from an interview in November, 2014.

2. For more about Charlie Cawley’s life and career, see Sam Roberts, “Charles M. Cawley, Credit Card Pioneer, Dies at 75,” New York Times, November 24, 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/business/charles-m-cawley-founder-of-mbna-corp-dies-at-75.html; and Reference for Business, s.v. “Charles M. Cawley,” accessed November 15, 2016, www.referenceforbusiness.com/biography/A-E/Cawley-Charles-M-1941.html.

3. This concept and phrase comes from the classic book of the same title: Clayton M. Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1997).

Chapter 3

1. Unless otherwise noted, material for this chapter relies on interviews we conducted with Brian O’Kelley, Grace Choi, Tom Phillips, Derek Lidow, Mark Bonfigli, Chris Pinkham, Brian Coester, and Bryan Roberts between the spring and fall of 2015.

2. Susie Moore, “What Sara Blakely Wished She Knew in Her 20s,” Marie Claire, November 4, 2014, www.marieclaire.com/politics/news/a11508/sara-blakely-interview.

3. Bruce Rogers, “Tom Leighton’s Journey from MIT Professor to Akamai CEO,” Forbes, May 20, 2014, www.forbes.com/sites/brucerogers/2014/05/20/tom-leightons-journey-from-mit-professor-to-akamai-ceo/#17fc60ee1d18.

4. Carl Brooks, “Amazon’s Early Efforts at Cloud Computing? Partly Accidental,” June 17, 2010, https://goo.gl/8J3HUL, (accessed November 15, 2016).

Chapter 4

1. See, for example, Kim Masters, “Jessica Alba’s Tears on Her Way to Building a $1 Billion Business,” Hollywood Reporter, October 3, 2014, www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/jessica-albas-tears-her-way-736714; Celia Fernandez, “Jessica Alba Talks $1 Billion Empire,” Latina, May 22, 2015, www.latina.com/entertainment/celebrity/jessica-alba-talks-honest-company-empire; and Clare O’Connor, “How Jessica Alba Built a $1 Billion Company, and $200 Million Fortune, Selling Parents Peace of Mind,” Forbes, June 15, 2015, www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2015/05/27/how-jessica-alba-built-a-1-billion-company-and-200-million-fortune-selling-parents-peace-of-mind/#154765441f0c.

2. For more about Jack Dorsey and his trajectory, see, for example, Biography.com, s.v. “Jack Dorsey,” last updated October 14, 2015, www.biography.com/people/jack-dorsey-578280#creation-of-twitter; and Nicholas Carlson, “Jack Dorsey Is Not Steve Jobs,” Business Insider, November 29, 2014, www.businessinsider.com/jack-dorsey-is-not-steve-jobs-2014-11.

3. Unless otherwise noted, material in this chapter relies on interviews we conducted with Derek Newell, Nate Morris, Katherine Hays, Jim Hornthal, James Currier, Angelo Pizzagalli, Ben Cohen, Jerry Greenfield, Jenny Fleiss, Christina Seelye, Greg Titus, Umair Khan, Doris Yeh, Aaron Levie, and Marsha Firestone between the spring and fall of 2015.

Chapter 5

1. Unless otherwise noted, material for this chapter relies on interviews we conducted with Margery Kraus, John Crowley, Mark Coopersmith, Peter Arvai, Suri Suriyakumar, Cindy Monroe, Chris Dries, June Ressler, and Chris Bischof between the spring and fall of 2015. Our interviews with George McLaughlin and Paul Gilbert took place in the fall of 2014 and 2013, respectively.

2. For more about Jack Ma, his trajectory as an entrepreneur, and his approach to building, see, for example, Jack Ma, “‘Unparalleled Ruthlessness’ Awaits: Jack Ma’s Letter to Alibaba Employees,” Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2014, http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/05/07/unparalleled-ruthlessness-awaits-jack-mas-letter-to-alibaba-employees/; Jack Ma, as told to Rebecca Fannin, “How I Did It: Jack Ma, Alibaba.com,” Inc., January 1, 2008, www.inc.com/magazine/20080101/how-i-did-it-jack-ma-alibaba.html; and “Jack Ma: ‘To Win in the 21st Century, You Must Empower Others,’” Project Pengyou, January 28, 2015, http://projectpengyou.org/jack-ma-to-win-in-the-21st-century-you-must-empower-others.

3. For a fascinating after-the-fact critique of Nokia’s decision-making culture, see Quy Huy and Timo Vuori, “Who Killed Nokia? Nokia Did,” INSEAD Knowledge, September 22, 2015, http://knowledge.insead.edu/strategy/who-killed-nokia-nokia-did-4268.

4. For more on the institute, see Great Place to Work United States, “About Us,” accessed November 15, 2016, www.greatplacetowork.com/about-us.

Chapter 6

1. For more on these cobuilders, see Julie Rice, “The Secrets to a SuccessfulBusiness Partnership,” Fast Company, June 18, 2015, www.fastcompany.com/3047361/hit-the-ground-running/the-secrets-to-a-successful-business-partnership; and SoulCycle, “Our Story,” accessed November 15, 2016, www.soul-cycle.com/our-story/.

2. Dharmesh Shah, “Startup Insights from Paul English, Co-Founder of Kayak,” OnStartups (blog), May 10, 2010, http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/12604/Startup-Insights-From-Paul-English-Co-Founder-of-Kayak.aspx.

3. An interesting personal observation on the Driver coauthors in this regard: one of us (John) prefers coequal frameworks in his venture activity because he feels that maximizes alignment between the parties and forces compromise when necessary; while the other (Chris) tends to view them as exceptions to his usual approach, believing that in order to win in competitive markets, a single person must have the tiebreaker vote in tough decisions.

4. Michael Abbott, “Founder Stories: Airbnb’s Nate Blecharczyk on Being the Only Engineer for the First Year,” TechCrunch, June 19, 2013, https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/19/founder-stories-airbnbs-nate-blecharczyk-on-being-the-only-engineer-for-the-first-year.

5. Special thanks to our University of California Berkeley faculty colleague, Dan Mulhern, for suggesting this approach to what he calls “paired leaders.”

6. Guy Kawasaki, “How to Find a Co-Founder,” Guy Kawasaki (blog), February 21, 2015, http://guykawasaki.com/how-to-find-a-co-founder/.

Chapter 8

1. Paul Maeder, interview with authors, October 1, 2015.

2. Andy Rachleff, interview with authors, August 4, 2015.

Chapter 9

1. Quotes from John Crowley, interview with authors, April 28, 2015.

2. Quotes from Paul Maeder, interview with authors, October 1, 2015.

3. Quotes from Laurie Spengler, interview with authors, November 4, 2014.

Appendix A

1. We chose the “3 + 3” threshold for several reasons. First, most major research reports on startup success and failure tend to concentrate on the first three to five years of a business. Second, the best available data on business scale suggests that the vast majority of startups do not surpass the $3 million threshold. Third, in light of those factors, we considered this 3 + 3 standard to be both practical and aspirational. As thousands more builders who satisfy this threshold complete our Builder Personality Discovery instrument, we expect to be able to refine it and perhaps make it more granular, for example, by industry sector or gender.

2. Gallup Strengths Center, home page, accessed November 15, 2016, www.gallupstrengthscenter.com.

3. Jim Clifton and Sangeeta Bharadwaj Badal, Entrepreneurial StrengthsFinder 2.0 (New York: Gallup Press, 2014).