Palmer Luckey & Anduril
Fired at 24, he built a $60B weapons empire
· 44 seconds
Builders
Founder stories across software, consumer brands and services: discover the people behind the companies.
David Holz & Midjourney
No VC, ~40 people, profitable in a month
· 56 seconds
Tope Awotona & Calendly
He drained his savings on an app everyone ignored
· 33 seconds
Jack Conte & Patreon
Millions of views paid him a few hundred dollars
· 32 seconds
Ben Chestnut & Mailchimp
Never raised a dime of VC - sold for $12B
· 36 seconds
Systrom, Krieger & Instagram
Their app was dying. One 8-week pivot sold it for $1B
· 34 seconds
Amjad Masad & Replit
A self-taught kid from Jordan built a $9B coding startup
· 40 seconds
Ivan Zhao & Notion
He fired his whole team and moved to Japan to save it
· 33 seconds
Sahil Lavingia & Gumroad
He wrote about failing. Creators have now earned $1B+
· 37 seconds
Sara Blakely & Spanx
$5,000 and a pair of cut-up pantyhose
· 58 seconds
Tobi Lütke & Shopify
His snowboard shop failed - the software became a $100B company
· 45 seconds
MrBeast
6 years of videos nobody watched
· 57 seconds
Jack Ma & Alibaba
Rejected from 30 jobs, even KFC - then a $200B company
· 59 seconds
Daymond John & FUBU
He sewed hats on a Queens street corner - $6B brand
· 60 seconds
James Dyson
He failed 5,126 times - the 5,127th made $16B
· 59 seconds
Nick Woodman & GoPro
He sold beads out of a van. Ten years later: $3B
· 59 seconds
Hamdi Ulukaya & Chobani
He arrived with $3,000 and built a billion-dollar yogurt empire
· 58 seconds
Melanie Perkins & Canva
Rejected 100 times, she built a $40B company from her mom's living room
· 48 seconds
Whitney Wolfe Herd & Bumble
Pushed out of Tinder, she built Bumble
· 46 seconds
Jan Koum & WhatsApp
He was on food stamps. Facebook bought his app for $19B
· 57 seconds
Brian Chesky & Airbnb
They sold cereal to survive. Now Airbnb is worth $100B
· 51 seconds
Ben Francis & Gymshark
A pizza-delivery driver built a $1.4B brand in his garage
· 57 seconds
Matthew Gallagher & Medvi
2 people built a $400M company with AI
· 61 seconds
Cursor
The AI-native code editor
· 76 seconds
Windsurf
The agentic AI code editor
· 58 seconds
Base44
Vibe-coded apps, acquired by Wix
· 57 seconds