If I am ever asked, “What was the most surprising thing you learned while writing this book?” I won’t respond with any of the research studies or company examples you’ve read. Although the topic has captivated me for over two and a half years, there can be only one answer to this question: I never knew how generous people could be.
I owe a particular debt of gratitude to the following people. This book truly would not have been possible without them.
Michelle Ahronovitz, Stephen Anderson, Dan Ariely, Jess Bachman, Gil Ben-Artzy, Laura Bergheim, Jonathan Bolden, Michal Bortnik, Vlada Bortnik, Ramsay Brown, James Cham, Tim Chang, Andrew Chen, Sangeet Paul Choudary, Steve Corcoran, Alex Cowan, John Dailey, Tanna Drapkin, Karen Dulski, Scott Dunlap, Eric Eldon, Josh Elman, Jasmine Eyal, Monique Eyal, Ofir Eyal, Omer Eyal, Ronit Eyal, Victor Eyal, Andrew Feiler, Christy Fletcher, B. J. Fogg, Janice Fraser, Jason Fraser, Shuly Galili, Ben Gardner, Kelly Greenwood, Bobby Gruenewald, Jonathan Guerrera, Austin Gunter, Steph Habif, Leslie Harlson, Stephen Houghton, Jason Hreha, Gabriela Hromis, Peter Jackson, Noah Kagan, Dave Kashen, Amy Jo Kim, John Kim, Michael Kim, David King, Thomas Kjemperud, Tristan Kromer, Rok Krulec, Michal Levin, Jonathan Libov, Chuck Longanecker and the team at Digital Telepathy, Jennifer Lu, Wayne Lue, Jules Maltz, Zack Marom, Dave McClure, Kelly McGonigal, Sarah Melnyk, Oreon Mounter and the team at Moment Communications Inc., Matt Mullenweg, Yash Nelapati, David Ngo, Thomas O’Duffy, Max Ogles, Amy O’Leary, Line Oma, Alex Osterwalder, Trevor Owens, Brett Redinger, Sharbani Roy, Gretchen Rubin, Lisa Rutherford, Kate Rutter, Paul Sas, Todd Sattersten, Travis Sentell, Bhavin Shah, Hiten Shah, Jason Shen, Baba Shiv, Paul Singh, Katja Spreckelmeyer, Jon Stone, Nisha Sudarsanam, Lydia Sugarman, Tim Sullivan, Tracey Sullivan, Guy Vincent, Jeff Waldstreicher, Charles Wang, AnneMarie Ward, Stephen Wendell, Mark Williamson, David Wolfe, Colin Zhu, Gabe Zichermann.
There are two more people who deserve extra recognition: First, Ryan Hoover, the contributing author, was instrumental in helping me turn a jumble of blog posts and writing scraps into a cohesive book. His dedication to this project, writing talent, and dogged persistence made the idea of this book a reality. I am sure the world will be hearing much more from Ryan in the years to come and I feel fortunate to have worked with him early in his career.
Next, this book is dedicated to my wife, Julie Li-Eyal. Julie assisted with everything, from practical tasks (such as designing the book cover and presentation slides) to serving as a sounding board during the ups and downs of the writing process. However, of all her contributions, the greatest is her unwavering support. Her endless affection leaves me forever in her debt and always wondering how I got so lucky.
Contributors
Thank you to the loyal blog subscribers who provided insightful feedback, careful edits, moral support, and gentle prodding.
The people listed on the following pages donated their time and insights to improving this book. I am in awe of their willingness to contribute to making this book what it is.
Shira Abel
Ashita Achuthan
Géraldine Adams
Buki Adeniji
Anuj Adhiya
Akash Agarwal
Michael Agnich
Payam Ahangar
Charles Ajidahun
Adi Alhadeff
Bashar Al-Nakhala
Colt Alton
Dina Amin
Preet Anand
Margaret Ancobiah
Ravikiran Annaswamy
Lauri Antalainen
Nikola Arabadjiev
Steve Arnold
Conall Arora
George Arutyunyan
Sunil Arvindam
Eldad Askof
Taimur Aslam
Nadya Averkieva
Mark Avnet
Hazem Awad
Paul Baccaro
Deepak Baid
Courtney Baker
Gary Baker
Paul Ballas
Jennifer Baloian
Naren Bansal
Jenny Barnes
Anat Baron
Matthew Barry
Neal Battaglia
Brian Bell
Simon Bentholm
Tim Benwell
Hampus Bergqvist
Brian Bettendorf
Ajay Bharadwaj
Maggie Biggs
Brad Birt
Justin Blanchard
Jim Bloedau
Sean Boisen
Jason Brady
Johan Brand
Jamie Bresner
Brendan Brown
Ramsay Brown
Robert Brown
Sarah E. Brown
Piotr Bucki
Ella Buitenman
Josip Bujas
Gabriela Cándano Herbas
Marica Caposaldo
Christopher Carfi
Jon Carr-Harris
Kevin Carroll
Giuseppe Catalfamo
Yoonji Chae
Ora Chaiken
Jacky Chan
Dennis Chandler
Kathy Chang
Stephen Chang
Geeta Chauhan
Sylvia Chebi
Frank Chen
Lucy Chen
Zhongning Chen
Chikodi Chima
Vivek Chopra
Sangeet Paul Choudary
Scott Christ
Yannis Christopoulos
Eugene Chuvyrov
Fran Civile
Gillian Clowes
Armin Čobo
Victor Colombo
Jim Conaghan
Esteban Contreras
Jacob Cook
Justin Copeland
Maxime Cormier
Ben Cote
Sylvia Creswell
Hana Crume
Andrian Cucu
Steve Cunningham
Antonio D’souza
Diogo da Silva
Steven Daar
Hadiyah Daché
Chad Dahlstrom
David Datny
Deeti Dave
David Davenport-Firth
Detrick DeBurr
Bart Denny
Shai Desai
Simren S. Dhaliwal
Cassius Dhelon
CASUDI aka Caroline Di Diego
António Dias
Andre Dickson
Andrew Didenko
Shawn Dimantha
Peter Dimitrov
Richard Dinerman
Florian Disson
Nolan Dubeau
Denise Duffy
Scott Dunlap
Arkadiusz Dymalski
Lars Eickmeier
André Eilertsen
Eyal Eldar
Dagur Eyjolfsson
Kingsley Ezejiaku
Fred Farnam
Pierre-Emile Faroult
Jack Farrell
Lloyd Fassett
Mijael Feldman
Yoel Feldman
Francesco Ferrazzino
Tony Fish
David Flemate
Keith Fleming
Joel Frisch
Timo Fritsche
Kaoru Fujita
Benjamin Gadbaw
Uli Gal-Oz
Hari Ganapathy
Amir Ganjeii
Magne Matre Gåsland
Meghbartma Gautam
Melissa Gena
Sigal Geshury
Sajad Ghanizada
Drew Gierach
Endri Gjinushi
Anshu Goel
Ming Gong
Pedro L. González
Jason Grace
Charlie Gragam
David Gratton
Ravishankar Gundlapalli
Abhishek Gupta
Michael Haberman
Steph Habif
Rob Hall
Hadas Hamerovv
Albert Hartman
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen
Eva Hasson
Chris Hawley
Mark Hayes
Elisa Heiken
Alfan Hendro
Benjamin Hoffman
Ryan Holdeman
Jason Holderness
Bob Holling
Joakim Holmquist
Kyle Homstead
Rahul Horé
Jonathan Hoss
Patrick Huitema
Matt Hurley
Nigel Ingham
Christos Iosifidis
Jan Isakovic
Yair Itzhaik
Ranjan Jagannathan
Javid Jamae
Kyle Jaster
Anandan Jayaraman
Eoghan Jennings
Amit Joshipura
Jonathan Kalinowski
Michael Kampff
Dave Kashen
Joshua Keay
Chandra Keith
Jason Kende
Gary Kind
Ed King
Jason King
Marcia Kinstler
Thomas Kjemperud
Michael Klazema
Tobias Kluge
Russ Klusas
Kathleen Knopoff
Felix Köbler
Vadim Komisarchik
R George Komoto
Jonathan Korn
Ravi Kotichintala
Mohammed Kromah
Charlie Kubal
Vineesh Kumar
Chris Kurdziel
Tim Kutnick
Brooks Lambert
Brian Lance
Betsy Lane
Norman Law
Vinney Le
Sebastien Le Tuan
Cody Lee
Rudi Leismann
Stephanie Lenorovitz
Andrew Levy
Anson Liang
Marvin Liao
Roland Ligtenberg
Eyal Livne
Tobias Loerracher
Jenn Lonzer
Jeff Lougheed
Jennifer Lu
Paul Lucas
Waynn Lue
Ricardo Luevanos Jr.
Ivan Lukianchuk
Pavan Lulla
Morten Lundsby
Darren Luvaas
Amanda MacArthur
Murray Macdonald
Churchill Madyavanhu
Jay Chuck Mailen
Solene Maitre
Wes Maldonado
Stanislav Maleshkov
Craig Mankelow
Armando Mann
Alexander Manolov
Jerad Maplethorpe
Angelos Marantos
Ivan Markovic
Leon Markovitz
Alon Matas
Chris Mathew
Jonathan Matus
Sunil Maulik
Gavin McDermott
Jon McGee
Michael McGee
Gilberto Medrano
Alfons Mencke
Aadesh Midtry
Christopher Miles
Greg Miliatis
Sophie-Charlotte Moatti
Lindsey Moav
Joe Mocquant
Pranoy Modi
Peter Monien
Aaron Moore
Thomas Morselt
Kareem Mostafa
Jodie Moule
Olivia Muesse
Tim Mukata
Noel Mulkeen
Lee Munroe
Neil Murray
Nikhil Nadkarni
Szabolcs Nagy
Nitya Narasimhan
Amaan Nathoo
Basanth Kumar Neeli
Errol Nezar
Vas Nikolaev
Dawn Novarina
Thomas O’Duffy
Neal O’Gorman
Sean O’Leary
Seyi Ogunyemi
Oli Olsen
Steve Omohundro
Kevin Ondyak
Alfredo Osorio
Ambika Pajjuri
Peter Pallotta
Hesam Panahi
Felipe Escanilla Panza
Petar Papikj
Juan Paredes
Lance Parker
Devang Patel
Nipul Patel
Randy Paynter
Allan Pedersen
Paolo Perazzo
Gary Percy
Igal Perelman
Daniele Peron
Nicholas Peterson
Jean-Baptiste Pin
Stephan Plesnik
Justin Pollard
Vera Polyakova
Eike Post
Dr. Eike Berend Post
Gilles Poupardin
Chris Pousset
Gee Powell
Mikhail Pozin
Julie Price
Amala Putrevu
Maniappan R.
Christian Raaby
Moshik Raccah
Cyrus Radfar
Sanjay Radhakrishnan
Brett Radlicki
Claudine Felice Ramirez
Umesh Rangappa
Ritesh Ranjan
Tore Rasmussen
Zoheb Raza
Christi Reid
Ophir Reshef
Kamil Rextin
Justin Reyes
Steve Rigell
Edson Rigonatti
Billy Robins
Lior Romano
Johann Romefort
Shai Rosen
Megan Rounds
Mark Rowland
Steve Rowling
Leon Rubinstein
Emily Ryan
Ari Salomon
Oren Samari
Julius Sapoka
Steven Saunders
Sid Savara
Adele Savarese
Amol Saxena
Matt Schaar
Charles Schaefer
Rick Schaefer
Miranda Schenkel
Nati Mark Schlesinger
Willemijn Schmitz
Johannes Schneider
Jason Schwartz
Adrian Scott
Joel Scott
Mark Sefaradi
Cameron Sepah
Sharad Seth
Rajesh Setty
Francisco Sevillano
Bhavin Shah
Sarah Shaiq
Aviv Shalgi
Yaron Shapira
Neeraj Sharma
Priya Sheth
Kevin Shin
Timothy Shipman
John Shoffner
Barak Shragai
Michael Siepmann
Diogo Silva
Michael Simpson
Navarjun Singh
Rachna Singh
Raj Singh
Indra Singhal
Chris Sluz
Dana Smith
Nick Soman
Matthew Sonier
Adam Sowers
Jonathan Squires
Karthik Srinivasan
John Starmer
Slobodan Stipic
Aleksandar Stojanovic
Dave Stone
Nisha Sudarsanam
Lydia Sugarman
Mike Summerfield
Andreas Sutharia
Brent Taggart
Itai Talmi
Dixit Talwar
Michael Tame
Norman Tan
Eva Tang
Ali Rushdan Tariq
John Thompson
Bob Thordarson
Brenton Thornicroft
Barbara Tien
Amir Toister
Jacqueline Tomko
Andrea Torino-Rodriguez
Raul Troyo
Steph Tryphonas
Rattapoom Tuchinda
Oji Udezue
Cristobal Undurraga
Adriana Ursache
Haruna Usman
Branislav Vajagić
Paul Valcheff
Joeri Vankeirsbilck
Tim Varner
Ashwanth Vemulapalli
René Vendrig
Francisco Vieyra
Alberto Villa
Guy Vincent
Khuong Vo Thanh
Marcus Vorwaller
Todd Wahnish
Akane Wakasugi
Karl Waldman
AnneMarie Ward
Mark Warren
Alan Weinkrant
Jay Weintraub
Stephen Wendel
Erik Wesslen
Albert Wieringa
Denis Wilson
Rick Winfield
Melinda Wiria
Reggie Wirjadi
Vanita Wolf
Nathanael Wolfe
Lyon Wong
Margo Wright
Renee Yarbrough
Dean Young
Beverley Zabow
Danny Zagorski
Hasnain Zaheer
Cindy Ris Zanca
Xin Zhou
Julie Zilber
Tal Zilberman
Keivan Zolfaghari
Zoran Zuber