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What do you get when you cross a herd of sheep with a herd of lemmings? A herd of venture capitalists.

Ben Horowitz

You’re better off being The Beatles than The Monkees, as a startup.
BEN HOROWITZ

Better Startup
It’s hard in daily life. It’s even harder in management because it’s the stress of the moment.
BEN HOROWITZ

Daily Life Management Stress
In my experience as CEO, I found that the most important decisions tested my courage far more than my intelligence.
BEN HOROWITZ

Decision Found Important
When you’re making a critical decision, you have to understand how it’s going to be interpreted from all points of view. Not just your point of view, not just the person you’re talking to, but the people that aren’t in the room. Everybody else.
BEN HOROWITZ

Critical Decisions Talking Views
Here’s Kanye, the great musical genius of his generation in hip hop, but, like, society really can’t even deal with him because he’s always saying something that people go, ‘Oh, I can’t believe Kanye said that. I can’t believe he did that.’
BEN HOROWITZ

Believe Musical Genius People
It’s quite possible for an executive to hit her goal for the quarter by ignoring the future.
BEN HOROWITZ

Executive Goal Quarters
These decisions intensify when you run a company, because the consequences get magnified 1,000 fold. As in life, the excuses for CEOs making the wrong choice are always plentiful.
BEN HOROWITZ

Choice Consequences Life Magnified Plentiful Wrong
There are no silver bullets.
BEN HOROWITZ

Bullets Growth No Silver
Generally the reason they fail in the job is, you made some mistake in the hiring process in that you didn’t match… them to the needs of your company accurately enough. That’s the #1 reason this fails. And that’s generally a good place to start.
BEN HOROWITZ

Accurate Decision Good Jobs Mistake Place Reason
Your employees know each other better than they know you.
BEN HOROWITZ

Employee Knows Management
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.
BEN HOROWITZ

Ambition Communication Mistakes
Yeah, I became a successful entrepreneur… Eventually
BEN HOROWITZ

Become Entrepreneur Successful
It turns out that is exactly what product strategy is all about—figuring out the right product is the innovator’s job, not the customer’s job.
BEN HOROWITZ

Customer Figuring Jobs Product Strategy Turns
Breakthrough ideas usually come from guys who look like they’re hallucinating
BEN HOROWITZ

Guy Hallucinating Ideas Looks
Nothing motivates a great employee more than a mission that’s so important that it supersedes everyone’s personal ambition.
BEN HOROWITZ

Ambition Important Mission
As a startup CEO, I slept like a baby. I woke up every 2 hours and cried.
BEN HOROWITZ

Baby Hours Motivation

What do you get when you cross a herd of sheep with a herd of lemmings? A herd of venture capitalists.

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What do you get when you cross a herd of sheep with a herd of lemmings? A herd of venture capitalists.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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