I have just finished reading Almost Perfect, a book available for free online about the author's involvement in the rise and fall of WordPerfect Corporation. The author is Pete Peterson. It's kind of interesting. I think I disagree with a lot his ideas, but I liked using Corel Word Perfect when I got my first computer in 1998, and I really enjoyed following the development of the company.
The idea of building a company is exciting and scary. I'd probably only do so if I thought I was able to help distribute important technological advances to many people by doing so. Personal wealth isn't very attractive to me. Money comes and goes and enables many things but isn't the reason why.
I more or less liked many or most of the ideas the author related. He liked to keep a flat, simple organisation, encourage principles and be hard when it was necessary. WordPerfect Corporations downfall did follow from his exit from the company, so there could be some correlation in that. He had to more or less figure out what he was doing as he went along. I suppose I'd probably end up having to do that, too. However, there seems like there'd be abundant resources in the market I'd have to compete in to learn from, whereas during his time, there'd be many fewer for the software market.
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