232 masters

Hall of Masters

105,795 records of what they actually said and lived through, organised by person. Find someone by name or field.

Korean or English names and other spellings all work.

Favourites All232 Founders and company builders74 Solo business and indie makers15 Investing and capital allocation31 Money and wealth thinking16 Strategy and mental models40 Product and engineering40 Marketing, brand and copywriting24 Sales and persuasion18 Content and audience25 Management and leadership55 Mindset and resilience64 Philosophy and wisdom traditions46 Science and first-principles thinking30 AI and frontier tech20 Craft, arts and performance44 Leaders in history and crisis25

Product and engineering

Makers of products people love. What to build, what to cut, and how to keep quality high while moving fast.

40 of 232 masters

Best known Name Most records

Steve Jobs
Co-founder of Apple (1955-2011)
343 records
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Photo Matthew Yohe · CC BY-SA 3.0
Linus Torvalds
Creator of Linux and Git
99 records
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Photo Krd (photo) Von Sprat (crop/extraction) · CC BY-SA 4.0
Shigeru Miyamoto
Nintendo game designer, creator of Mario and Zelda
152 records
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Photo 文部科学省 · CC BY 4.0
Thomas Edison
Inventor, co-founder of General Electric (1847-1931)
701 records
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Photo Louis Bachrach, Bachrach Studios, restored by Michel Vuijlsteke · Public domain
Jony Ive
Former Apple design chief, founder of LoveFrom
32 records
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Photo Marcus Dawes · CC BY-SA 3.0
James Dyson
Founder of Dyson, inventor
35 records
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Photo Royal Society uploader · CC BY-SA 4.0
John Carmack
Co-founder of id Software, lead programmer of Doom
81 records
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Photo RoboSabs · CC0
Alan Kay
Computer scientist, pioneer of object-oriented programming
27 records
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Photo Marcin Wichary from San Francisco, U.S.A. · CC BY 2.0
Eric Ries
Author of The Lean Startup
938 records
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Photo Margot Duane 2012 · CC BY-SA 2.0
Marty Cagan
Founder of Silicon Valley Product Group, author of Inspired
1,016 records
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Joel Spolsky
Co-founder of Stack Overflow and Trello
556 records
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Photo Katie Chan · CC BY-SA 4.0
Edwin Land
Co-founder of Polaroid (1909-1991)
52 records
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Photo Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer · Public domain
Julie Zhuo
Former VP of design at Facebook, author
963 records
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Photo Collision Conf · CC BY 2.0
Elon Musk
CEO of SpaceX and Tesla
577 records
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Photo Gage Skidmore · CC BY-SA 4.0
Bill Gates
Co-founder of Microsoft, philanthropist
378 records
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Photo Bogdan Hoyaux / European Union · CC BY 4.0
Mark Zuckerberg
Co-founder and CEO of Meta (Facebook)
669 records
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Photo The White House · Public domain
Tim Cook
Executive chairman and former CEO of Apple
26 records
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Photo Dati Bendo / European Union · CC BY 4.0
Lisa Su
Chair and CEO of AMD
18 records
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Photo Fuzheado · CC BY 4.0
Nikola Tesla
Inventor who pioneered AC electricity (1856-1943)
326 records
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Photo Napoleon Sarony · Public domain
Paul Graham
Co-founder of Y Combinator, essayist
1,564 records
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Photo TechCrunch (Charles Eshelman/Getty Images for AOL) · CC BY 2.0
Henry Ford
Founder of Ford Motor Company (1863-1947)
511 records
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Photo Fred Hartsook · Public domain
Andrej Karpathy
Founding member of OpenAI, former head of AI at Tesla
705 records
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Photo Gladwin Analytics · CC BY 3.0
Satoru Iwata
Fourth president of Nintendo (1959-2015)
87 records
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Photo Official GDC · CC BY 2.0
Jack Dorsey
Co-founder of Twitter and Block
47 records
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Photo Mark Warner · CC BY 2.0
Brian Chesky
Co-founder and CEO of Airbnb
56 records
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Photo Celeste Sloman · CC BY-SA 4.0
Akio Morita
Co-founder of Sony (1921-1999)
90 records
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Photo プレジデント社撮影者不明 · Public domain
Patrick Collison
Co-founder and CEO of Stripe
345 records
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Photo JD Lasica · CC BY 2.0
Soichiro Honda
Founder of Honda (1906-1991)
41 records
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Photo 財界研究社、撮影者不明 · Public domain
Clayton Christensen
Author of The Innovator's Dilemma (1952-2020)
28 records
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Photo World Economic Forum from Cologny, Switzerland · CC BY-SA 2.0
Ed Catmull
Co-founder and former president of Pixar
14 records
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Photo Web Summit · CC BY 2.0
Tobi Lütke
Co-founder and CEO of Shopify
97 records
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Photo Benjamin Forrest · CC BY-SA 4.0
Jason Fried
Co-founder and CEO of 37signals (Basecamp)
790 records
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Photo Cory Doctorow from Beautiful Downtown Burbank, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0
Marc Randolph
Co-founder and first CEO of Netflix
72 records
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Photo Gage Skidmore · CC BY-SA 3.0
David Heinemeier Hansson
Creator of Ruby on Rails, co-owner of 37signals
944 records
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Photo David Merrett from Daventry, England · CC BY 2.0
Grace Hopper
Computer pioneer and US Navy rear admiral (1906-1992)
41 records
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Photo James S. Davis · Public domain
Pieter Levels
Solo maker of Nomad List, Remote OK and Photo AI
379 records
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W. Edwards Deming
Statistician, pioneer of quality management (1900-1993)
51 records
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Photo FDA · Public domain
Steve Blank
Creator of customer development, startup educator
920 records
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Photo CM Photography (Photoscm) · CC BY 4.0
Andrew Chen
Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, growth writer
809 records
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Patrick McKenzie
Software entrepreneur and writer known as patio11
937 records
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Photo betsyweber · CC BY 2.0

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