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

Ben Horowitz

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

Baby Hours Motivation
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
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
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
Sometimes an organization doesn’t need a solution; it just needs clarity.
BEN HOROWITZ

Clarity Needs Organization
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
Until you make the effort to get to know someone or something, you don’t know anything.
BEN HOROWITZ

Anything Effort Knows Someone Something
The bigger you get, the harder this gets because the more aggressive the people working for you are.
BEN HOROWITZ

Bigger Management People
A key thing in being a leader is you’ve got to pause yourself.
BEN HOROWITZ

Keys Leader Management
I believe in strength over lack of weakness.
BEN HOROWITZ

Believe Strength Weakness
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
You don’t need every investor to believe that you can succeed. You only need one.
BEN HOROWITZ

Believe Inspiration Needs
The only thing that prepares you to run a company is running a company.
BEN HOROWITZ

Company Repair Running
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
For example, the vast majority of security break-ins occur as a result of problems with known fixes. With an automated system, you can keep up to date.
BEN HOROWITZ

Date Example Majority Problem Result
A CEO needs great intelligence and great courage. And I always found my courage was tested more.
BEN HOROWITZ

Entrepreneur Found Needs

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

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

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