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A manager can’t act like a role model. They need to BE a role model.

Ben Horowitz

Early in my career as an engineer, I’d learned that all decisions were objective until the first line of code was written. After that, all decisions were emotional.
BEN HOROWITZ

Career Decision Emotional
When raising money, you want to look through the lens of ‘What happens when things go wrong?’
BEN HOROWITZ

Lenses Looks Want
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
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
What do you get when you cross a herd of sheep with a herd of lemmings? A herd of venture capitalists.
BEN HOROWITZ

Lemming Sheep Venture
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.
BEN HOROWITZ

People Said Thinking
If you have never done the job, how do you know what to want?
BEN HOROWITZ

Done Jobs never Want
You know what the difference between a vision and a hallucination is? They call it a vision when other people can see it.
BEN HOROWITZ

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

Better Startup
Until you make the effort to get to know someone or something, you don’t know anything.
BEN HOROWITZ

Anything Effort Knows Someone Something
Mark [Andressen] was more popular than me at the time … He was like Beyoncé, I was Kelly Rowlings
BEN HOROWITZ

Beyonce Mark More Popular Time
Note to self: It’s a good idea to ask, “What am I not doing?
BEN HOROWITZ

Ask Good Ideas Notes Self
There is no silver bullet. There are always options and the options have consequences.
BEN HOROWITZ

Bullets Consequences Silver
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
Leadership is hard to train on.
BEN HOROWITZ

Hard Leadership Train

A manager can’t act like a role model. They need to BE a role model.

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A manager can’t act like a role model. They need to BE a role model.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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