Ben Horowitz
Ben Horowitz
Ben Horowitzis an American businessman, investor, blogger, and author. He is a high technology entrepreneur and co-founder and general partner along with Marc Andreessen of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He co-founded and served as president and chief executive officer of the enterprise software company Opsware, which Hewlett-Packard acquired for $1.6 billion in cash in July 2007. Horowitz is the author of The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers. In the...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth13 June 1966
Ben Horowitz quotes about
Don't punk out and don't quit.
The only thing that prepares you to run a company is running a company.
A key thing in being a leader is you’ve got to pause yourself.
The thing that's confusing for investors is that founders don't know how to be CEO. I didn't know how to do the job when I was a CEO. Founder CEOs don't know how to be CEOs, but it doesn't mean they can't learn. The question is... can the founder learn that job and can they tolerate all mistakes they will make doing it?
As companies move to web-based computing they get a lot more servers, which are difficult to manage and control. All kinds of problems can arise - security, quality and worms.
As a company grows, communication becomes its biggest challenge.
Every time you make the hard, correct decision you become a bit more courageous, and every time you make the easy, wrong decision you become a bit more cowardly. If you are CEO, these choices will lead to a courageous or cowardly company.
There are no silver bullets...
One of the great things about building a tech company is the amazing people that you can hire.
Sometimes an organization doesn’t need a solution; it just needs clarity.
Wartime CEO is too busy fighting the enemy to read management books written by consultants who have never managed a fruit stand.
Most large mistakes in organizational design come from putting the individual ambitions of the people at the top of the organization ahead of the communication paths for the people at the bottom of the organization.
When raising money, you want to look through the lens of 'What happens when things go wrong?'
I think theres a lot to be said about just enjoying your work. It can be very contrived when people say their work is for the good of mankind.