the.com/founder
part visionary, part lunatic, fully convinced the impossible just needs better scheduling.
means A founder is the person who establishes a company, organization, or venture — the one who starts the thing and bears the original risk of it.
from Two different words wear the same coat here. The 'starter' founder comes from Latin 'fundare,' to lay a foundation, from 'fundus,' the bottom or base — the same root that gives us 'fund' and 'fundamental.' Curiously, there's a darker twin: 'founder' meaning 'to sink or fail,' as a ship founders, which traces through Old French 'fondrer' (to collapse) back to that same 'fundus' — to go to the bottom. So the one who lays the foundation and the one who sinks to the bottom are etymological cousins, which founders may find either poetic or alarming.
- failure rate
- Roughly 90% of startups eventually collapse.
- word origin
- Shares roots with foundering — a ship sinking.
- common trait
- Often dropped out before finishing a degree.
- solo odds
- Most successful startups had two or more founders.
steve jobs — founded apple computer company in 1976 in los altos, california
mark zuckerberg — founded facebook in 2004 from harvard university dorm room
elon musk — founded tesla in 2003 and spacex in 2002