An S-1 is the filing a company sends the SEC before its IPO. It says what the company does, how it makes money, and what could sink it. Lawyers check every line, because investors can sue over a false one. That makes it the most honest thing most companies ever write about themselves.
S1 Directory collects 1052 of them, from tech companies that went public between 1995 and 2026. Each one is bound as a book, with a short essay and a cover made from a public-domain artwork picked for the company's story.
Start with Amazon's, filed in 1997, when it still called itself Earth's Biggest Bookstore. Or browse the whole directory.
Filings link to the original documents on SEC EDGAR. IPO dates and offer prices come from the Jay Ritter IPO dataset and sec-api.io. Cover art comes from the Art Institute of Chicago open access collection (CC0). The company essays are short summaries. If you spot an error, open an issue.