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There is no silver bullet. There are always options and the options have consequences.

Ben Horowitz

Planning is valuable, tho the plan is usually useless.
BEN HOROWITZ

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

Better Startup
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
A manager can’t act like a role model. They need to BE a role model.
BEN HOROWITZ

Manager Models Needs Role
A lot of it is on the job training, combined with excellent mentorship.
BEN HOROWITZ

Excellent Job Lot Mentorship Training
Until you make the effort to get to know someone or something, you don’t know anything.
BEN HOROWITZ

Anything Effort Knows Someone Something
Business ends up being very dynamic and situational.
BEN HOROWITZ

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

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

Clear Customer Want
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
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
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 is no silver bullet. There are always options and the options have consequences.

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There is no silver bullet. There are always options and the options have consequences.

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Popular Authors

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