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It’s pretty clear that [customers] know what their budgets are now, and what they want to spend it on.

Ben Horowitz

Leadership is hard to train on.
BEN HOROWITZ

Hard Leadership Train
When I was CEO, and I’d listen to music, a lot of people listen to music and you get inspiration from it. And a lot of things in hip hop are very instructive for being in business. Particularly, hip hop is a lot about business, and so it was very useful for me in any job.
BEN HOROWITZ

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

Better Startup
A lot of it is on the job training, combined with excellent mentorship.
BEN HOROWITZ

Excellent Job Lot Mentorship Training
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
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
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
Don’t punk out and don’t quit.
BEN HOROWITZ

Inspirational Motivational Quit
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
Sometimes an organization doesn’t need a solution; it just needs clarity.
BEN HOROWITZ

Clarity Needs Organization
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
As a company grows, communication becomes its biggest challenge.
BEN HOROWITZ

Challenges Communication Company
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
Business ends up being very dynamic and situational.
BEN HOROWITZ

Business Dynamic Ends Situation
In a company, hundreds of decisions get made, but objectives and goals are thin.
BEN HOROWITZ

Decision Goal Made
Your employees know each other better than they know you.
BEN HOROWITZ

Employee Knows Management

It’s pretty clear that [customers] know what their budgets are now, and what they want to spend it on.

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Popular Authors

It’s pretty clear that [customers] know what their budgets are now, and what they want to spend it on.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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