Unscalable

In Unscalable, startup founder and software engineer Charlie Guo uncovers the lesser-known backstories of failure and success in interviews with some of the most daring founders in Silicon Valley. While much is made of the mythology of brilliant leadership and “overnight” success stories, these interviews pull back the veil on a much more eclectic mix of strategies and experiments, revealing the longer and less predictable road to success in Silicon Valley.

Guo gives us a look at the edgier moments behind the glamor of the tech boom. To the question “Will it scale?” this book suggests that more often than not, the answer may be “No!”―especially as fledgling ideas try to shape-shift their way into actual products and companies. Some of those new entities will themselves spawn new startups, while some will fade into oblivion. From vacuuming out hundreds of cars in a green vest to learning that Britney Spears was their newest account, founders share the peaks and valleys that have made startups one of the most riveting stories of the century.

Charlie Guo lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, in the heart of the world he portrays. A software engineer by trade, he has also founded two companies. While getting his undergraduate degree at Stanford, he founded the education-tech company ClassOwl. ClassOwl partners with Stanford and other schools to improve student-teacher communication and productivity, and in startup-storybook fashion it was sold by Guo’s cofounders in 2015 to Branch Metrics. After graduation, he launched a second company, FanHero, which was accepted into Y Combinator, a prestigious startup accelerator program based in Silicon Valley. His own experiences working to make his ideas fly exposed him to the inner workings of the startup culture and inspired him to reach out to a fascinating mix of tech founders to share their experiences.