black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Here’s where we are and here’s what I didn’t recognize about us and about you when I made the decision, and now it is what it is.

Ben Horowitz

Leadership is hard to train on.
BEN HOROWITZ

Hard Leadership Train
Yeah, I became a successful entrepreneur… Eventually
BEN HOROWITZ

Become Entrepreneur Successful
To succeed at selling a losing product, you must develop seriously superior sales techniques. In addition, you have to be massively competitive and incredibly hungry to survive in that environment.
BEN HOROWITZ

Losing Succeed Technique
When raising money, you want to look through the lens of ‘What happens when things go wrong?’
BEN HOROWITZ

Lenses Looks Want
I believe in strength over lack of weakness.
BEN HOROWITZ

Believe Strength Weakness
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
The one thing with stress is, you’ve got to keep your focus on what you can do, not what happened to you.
BEN HOROWITZ

Focus Management Stress
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.
BEN HOROWITZ

Kind Moving Quality
The important thing about mobile is, everybody has a computer in their pocket. The implications of so many people connected to the Internet all the time from the standpoint of education is incredible.
BEN HOROWITZ

Important People Phones
A CEO needs great intelligence and great courage. And I always found my courage was tested more.
BEN HOROWITZ

Entrepreneur Found Needs
Volatility and length, that’s the value on an option. 10 years on a startup stock, that’s a big valuable thing.
BEN HOROWITZ

Length Management Years
The right answer on raises is you have to be formal. You have to be formal to save your own culture.
BEN HOROWITZ

Answer Culture Management
Wartime CEO is too busy fighting the enemy to read management books written by consultants who have never managed a fruit stand.
BEN HOROWITZ

Book Enemy Fighting
The person they’re working with, is going to be the person they’ll know more. So if that person leaves, they’re going to go – well, should have I left too? What did they get and how does that compare to my deal.
BEN HOROWITZ

Company Deal Leaves Management
There are no shortcuts to knowledge, especially knowledge gained from personal experience. Following conventional wisdom and relying on shortcuts can be worse than knowing nothing at all.
BEN HOROWITZ

Knowing Knowledge Gain Nothing Shortcut
In life, everybody faces choices between doing what’s popular, easy, and wrong vs. doing what’s lonely, difficult, and right.
BEN HOROWITZ

Decision Lonely Running
As a startup CEO, I slept like a baby. I woke up every 2 hours and cried.
BEN HOROWITZ

Baby Hours Motivation
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
A key thing in being a leader is you’ve got to pause yourself.
BEN HOROWITZ

Keys Leader Management
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
The only thing that prepares you to run a company is running a company.
BEN HOROWITZ

Company Repair Running
You can take somebody’s job, you have to take their job, but you don’t have to take their dignity.
BEN HOROWITZ

Dignity Jobs Management
In a company, hundreds of decisions get made, but objectives and goals are thin.
BEN HOROWITZ

Decision Goal Made
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
In life, you don’t have a level of confrontation and the nonsense you run into when you’re a CEO. CEOs aren’t born.
BEN HOROWITZ

Levels Nonsense Running
I emphasize to C.E.O.s, you have to have a story in the minds of the employees. It’s hard to memorize objectives, but it’s easy to remember a story.
BEN HOROWITZ

Mind Remember Stories
Hire sales people who are really smart problem solvers, but lack courage, hunger and competitiveness, and your company will go out of business.
BEN HOROWITZ

People Problem Smart

Here’s where we are and here’s what I didn’t recognize about us and about you when I made the decision, and now it is what it is.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Here’s where we are and here’s what I didn’t recognize about us and about you when I made the decision, and now it is what it is.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ben Horowitz Quotes