Check out www.bookhuddle.com, a site where you can track the books you want to read, are reading, your favorite books, etc. Find out what books are newly released, top selling, in most users' lists, and more, by book category.
Not related to the cosmos, but "Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters" is a great book. It presents information in a story format that allows people without much scientific background to understand and appreciate the genome.
I encourage you to work on one or more of your ideas sooner rather than later, even while working full-time.
You seem to be at the stage in your life where you could pursue the YCombinator program (or similar programs). This is one way to fund your ideas without going the self-funded route.
You seem to have the skills that you'll always be able to get jobs at Yahoo or elsewhere. You don't really have much to lose.
Everyone has their own reasons, I'm sure. Here are some that come to mind:
- They don't have an idea for a startup
- They've never thought about entrepreneurship
- They don't know how to go about doing it
- They might be afraid to try
- They just don't feel like it; the commitment involved is not appealing to them
- They have other interests in life that are more important to them
- Their life situation prevents them from pursuing a startup idea
I don't quite agree that "web developers" don't have the qualities of "startup founders". Many probably do, but might not show them for whatever reason.
Chance plays a huge role is success, so the qualities of "successful" startup founders might not be that different from the "unsuccessful" ones.
Ambition, passion, persistence, motivation, good communication skills, a certain level of intelligence, ability to work with and motivate people are some qualities (certainly not all) that you'll probably find in founders.
It might help you gain insight on how some employers might evaluate candidates, you can assess where you fit in the matrix, and work on improving in the areas of weakness (this is a long term thing).
I recommend reviewing the technical stuff so you can come out sharp and talk intelligently about those topics. Brain teasers often come up. It's been a while since I interviewed with Microsoft, but I remember lots of questions about data structures, linked lists, traversal algorithms, etc.
Employers are looking for people that are technically solid or show potential, have a good attitude, can work in teams, are good communicators, etc.
I haven't pursued an MBA, but know lots of people that have, including my siblings. All of them seem to have had great experiences with their programs; they learned a lot, met great people, experienced many things during the program that they probably wouldn't experience otherwise, and gotten a broader perspective than they had before.
Many of them have had lucrative career opportunities after their programs and these opportunities probably would not have come by or similar opportunities would come by only much later in their careers. This seems to be a great value of an MBA program, especially one at a top school.
I would recommend trying to figure out what kind of work you want to be doing or enjoy/think you enjoy and then picking the education that will be most appropriate to help you get there.
An MBA, MS in CS, and a Law degree will all be a great additions to your credentials, you will certainly learn a lot, and each will open up a lot of opportunities, but the opportunities will likely be very different.
If you want to be a VC, then combine all three. If you want to be a patent lawyer, then CS and Law are good. :)
This list is made up from books I've read, books friends and coworkers have read, books on Joel Spolsky's Management Training Program, the Personal MBA reading list, and books recommmened by people on Hacker News.
I second the vesting strategy. Make sure that whatever you set up aligns incentives with performance and the company's interests. Since this person is still working at another full time job, determine what level of commitment you expect that person to make to your venture (i.e. 10 or 20 hrs/week until a specific date or a funding stage); determine when will he have to commit full time to the business.
Consider how much each of you has contributed in initial capital and sweat equity to this point, where in your company's development you guys are at (concept only, prototype, beta version, etc) and how what he'll contribute is worth to you guys.
Since there isn't a clear market to easily price your venture, it'll probably come down to an agreement that feels right to you and you can live with.
Bookhuddle groups or book clubs is a tool to help you organize and run groups or book clubs. Whether your book club has in person meetings or is a purely virtual club, you can benefit from this aspect of Bookhuddle.
You can invite Bookhuddle members or people outside of Bookhuddle to join your group; you can control who can join the group via the group settings.
Your group will have three default book lists that you can use to manage the group's reading. The default lists are: Read Books, Books To Read, Currently Reading, but you can create any number of lists.
Each group also has a forum where group members can discuss.
Thanks for your feedback. On Bookhuddle, you can easily add books that you like to your list, simply search for the book and click "add to list" and select the list you wish to add it to. You can also tag the book and tagging with one of the predefined tags automatically adds the book to the related book list.
You can also recommend books to anyone within or outside Bookhuddle, simply click on the "Recommend to friends" link on the book detail page or any search result page.
The Activity Feed is also a great way to discover books through your friends. When they interact with a book (write a review, participate in discussion, add to a list, etc), you find out.
We thank everyone for the honest feedback, that is exactly what we are looking for. We understand that everyone has an opinion, a point of view, and a set of expectations and we appreciate you sharing yours with us.
Any company faces lots of challenges and constraints while pursuing its vision. Prioritizing and executing on the things that will get the company there are the hard part. We understand and accept that and are excited to try to create a great service to help readers discover, organize, and share book information.
That's in the plan. In the meantime, on Bookhuddle you can organize your books in lists such as read, reading, to read, favorite, and own, or create any number of lists to help you organize your books.
You can also form book clubs there and manage multiple group lists.