You sound like someone that is looking for where to learn more about BTC, which is a good thing for BTC users to know but I will advise you to be more focus on some of the things the senior members will refer you to in this platform or you can go through the past topic concerning BTC like what NotATether said which is the easiest way for newbies to know more about the history of BTC. I believe, you will get more respond that will make you to know more about what happened to BTC in the year 2008 and 2011 and how many people embraced great opportunity that made them to become great men and women in BTC investment.

Contact BitcoinFX https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=30, if he cooperates with you, you will get detailed details, as he is the most active person and has historical information.
Martti Malmi aka sirius and the second person to develop Bitcoin has a talk about the early days here

https://forum.bitcoin.com/ama-ask-me-anything/i-m-martti-malmi-early-bitcoin-developer-and-the-original-founder-of-the-bitcointalk-org-forums-ama-t2770.html

Additional links:
https://www.theverge.com/2015/6/10/8751933/the-shy-college-student-who-helped-build-bitcoin-into-a-global

As long as you are ready to learn well, search for it on this Forum, you should get the best from people's responses on the subject-related matter, read a few before and it was helpful

Just as recommended you can get all that you want from this board since you looking foe were to get the best achievement of early developers and the Bitcoin early journey till the present time, I am sure if you press hard to make extra efforts outside this forum, I am sure you will find a handful of information and data that will support the success of your research.

You may not be able to meet the early Bitcoin developers one-on-one but you can easily find whatever information you will need on the internet with the right search tools.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned any books--actual books, like in-print ones and also available on Kindle and wherever else.  Does anybody read anymore?

I wasn't paying attention to anything related to bitcoin in the very early days (2009-2011) and became curious about this topic myself a while back.  I first read Digital Gold by Nathanial Popper and found it to be quite informative.

The only other book I've read, which was good but kind of covered bitcoin history from a very Winklevoss-biased perspective, was Bitcoin Billionaires by Ben Mezrich.  It was a juicier read by far, and I'm not putting it down by any means but it sounds like you want to do a deep dive into bitcoin's history.  You ought to read some posts on this forum from the early days, because they are fascinating once you've gotten a feel for how it's like here now and how different those posts are by comparison.

Good luck!

Why not contact @Theymos himself?

It's obvious that you should read satoshi.
Members like  laszlo the Pizza Guy, and Hal and his Bitcoin and me (Hal Finney).

Some good threads to read:

• The Bitcoin Origins - Explore Bitcoin History and Secrets
• Bitcoin price history [2009 - 2020]
• The most iconic bitcointalk threads. History on Bitcointalk.

In this forum, I recommend that you go straight to the accounts of Satoshi and Hal Finney and Adam Back and all those who played very important roles in the early formation years of Bitcoin.

And then there's also Satoshi Nakamoto Institute. You will find there the cryptography mailing list emails. You have to remember that this forum came a bit late. When Satoshi first brought up the idea of Bitcoin, it was through this email.