Ben Horowitz

Andreessen Horowitz · Opsware · b. 1966

Born May 13, 1966

Entrepreneur, investor, and writer. Ben Horowitz (born 1966 in London, raised in Berkeley, California) co-founded Loudcloud in 1999 with Marc Andreessen — an attempt to build an internet infrastructure company that nearly failed before pivoting to software and becoming Opsware, sold to Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion in 2007. He and Andreessen then founded the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz in 2009. His book The Hard Thing About Hard Things (2014) is widely regarded as the most honest account of the unglamorous realities of running a startup, and What You Do Is Who You Are (2019) applies lessons from history's greatest leaders to company culture.

Covered on Founders #41 (The Hard Thing About Hard Things)

Career highlights

1966Born 13 May in London, England; raised in Berkeley, California.
1988Earned a BA in computer science from Columbia University.
1990Earned an MS in computer science from UCLA.
1992Briefly worked as a product manager at Apple, then joined Lotus.
1995Joined Netscape, where he met Marc Andreessen.
1999Co-founded Loudcloud with Andreessen to provide managed internet infrastructure.
2001Loudcloud nearly collapsed in the dot-com bust; Horowitz saved it by pivoting to an enterprise software model and renaming it Opsware.
2007Sold Opsware to Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion.
2009Co-founded the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz with Marc Andreessen.
2014Published The Hard Thing About Hard Things, on the realities of running a startup.
2019Published What You Do Is Who You Are, on building company culture from history's great leaders.

Lessons for founders

Run the company, not the crisis. Horowitz's core lesson is that the CEO's job is to make the company survive and thrive in the hard times, not to win the argument. When everything is falling apart, the founder must stay focused on the long game rather than the immediate fires.
The most important thing is to be the CEO of a company that is winning. Horowitz argues that the emotional weight of being a losing CEO is crushing, and that nothing matters more than positioning the company to win. Hard things are hard because there is no easy answer — the founder must make the call and own it.
Pivot when the product-market fit is wrong, not out of fear. Loudcloud survived the dot-com bust by facing brutal facts: the managed-hosting model wasn't working, so Horowitz pivoted the company to enterprise software. The willingness to abandon a failing strategy, not cling to it, is what saved the company.
Hire people you can trust to tell you the truth. Horowitz emphasizes building a team of people who will tell the CEO the hard truth, even when it's uncomfortable. A CEO surrounded by yes-people is heading for disaster.
The founder must be willing to make the hard people decisions. Firing friends, demoting founders, and making unpopular calls are part of the job. Horowitz is candid that these are the hardest parts of being a CEO but that avoiding them destroys the company.
Culture is strategy repeated as behavior. In What You Do Is Who You Are, Horowitz argues that culture is not a set of values you post on the wall but the behaviors you actually reward and tolerate. He draws on historical leaders — from Toussaint Louverture to the Shawnee — to show how culture is built by action, not aspiration.

In their own words2

The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

Ben Horowitz

Horowitz's candid account of the unglamorous realities of running a startup — layoffs, firings, near-bankruptcy, and the emotional toll of leadership. Widely regarded as the most honest business book about the founder's job. source ↗

What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Culture

Ben Horowitz

Horowitz's second book applies lessons from history's great leaders and organizations — from Toussaint Louverture to the Shawnee, samurai, and Genghis Khan — to the problem of building a company culture. source ↗

What they recommend10

The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution

C. L. R. James

Named his favorite leadership book"The Black Jacobins ... is my favorite leadership book ever and one of the great stories in human history." source ↗

Toussaint Louverture: A Revolutionary Life

Philippe Girard

Recommended for founders; the story of a leader built against overwhelming odds source ↗

High Output Management

Andrew S. Grove

Named a favorite management book source ↗

Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company

Andrew S. Grove

Named a favorite book on strategy"Andy Grove's Only the Paranoid Survive is a great book on strategy." source ↗

The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail

Clayton M. Christensen

Named a favorite book on strategy"Andy Grove's Only the Paranoid Survive is a great book on strategy as is The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen." source ↗

My Years with General Motors

Alfred P. Sloan Jr.

Named a standout management book"In the category of management, I haven't found that many to be useful, but My Years at GM by Alfred Sloan was very interesting particularly on scale issues." source ↗