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Nothing motivates a great employee more than a mission that’s so important that it supersedes everyone’s personal ambition.

Ben Horowitz

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
The key to high-quality communication is trust, and its hard to trust somebody that you dont know.
BEN HOROWITZ

Communication Keys Quality
The trouble with innovation is that truly innovative ideas often look like bad ideas at the time.
BEN HOROWITZ

Ideas Innovation Looks
Over the last ten years, technological advances have dramatically lowered the financial bar for starting a new company, but the courage bar for building a great company remains as high as it has ever been.
BEN HOROWITZ

Bar Company Lasts Lower Years
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
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.
BEN HOROWITZ

Choice Courageous Decision
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
A CEO needs great intelligence and great courage. And I always found my courage was tested more.
BEN HOROWITZ

Entrepreneur Found Needs
A manager can’t act like a role model. They need to BE a role model.
BEN HOROWITZ

Manager Models Needs Role
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
Sometimes an organization doesn’t need a solution; it just needs clarity.
BEN HOROWITZ

Clarity Needs Organization
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

About Decision Made Now Recognize
There is no silver bullet. There are always options and the options have consequences.
BEN HOROWITZ

Bullets Consequences Silver
How do you make your company a good place to work in general? That’s a really really really large and complex set of skills.
BEN HOROWITZ

Jobs Skills Training
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
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
I don’t believe in statistics. I believe in calculus.
BEN HOROWITZ

Believe Statistics
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
Your employees know each other better than they know you.
BEN HOROWITZ

Employee Knows Management
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
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
Note to self: It’s a good idea to ask, “What am I not doing?
BEN HOROWITZ

Ask Good Ideas Notes Self
Until you make the effort to get to know someone or something, you don’t know anything.
BEN HOROWITZ

Anything Effort Knows Someone Something
Breakthrough ideas usually come from guys who look like they’re hallucinating
BEN HOROWITZ

Guy Hallucinating Ideas Looks
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
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
There are no silver bullets.
BEN HOROWITZ

Bullets Growth No Silver

Nothing motivates a great employee more than a mission that’s so important that it supersedes everyone’s personal ambition.

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Nothing motivates a great employee more than a mission that’s so important that it supersedes everyone’s personal ambition.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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