Hard things about hard things
by Ben Horowitz · 2014
Building a business when there are no easy answers
About
While many people talk about how great it is to start a business, very few are honest about how difficult entrepreneurship is when it comes to running one. Ben Horowitz analyzes the problems that confront leaders every day, sharing the insights he's gained developing, managing, selling, buying, investing in, and supervising technology companies. Horowitz is the cofounder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm; previously he was cofounder and CEO of Opsware, formerly Loudcloud, which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion in 2007.
Official summary
A lot of people talk about how great it is to start a business, but only Ben Horowitz is brutally honest about how hard it is to run one. In The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Horowitz draws on his own story of founding, running, selling, buying, managing, and investing in technology companies to offer essential advice and practical wisdom for navigating the toughest problems business schools don't cover. He analyzes issues with no easy answers through his trials, including demoting or firing a loyal friend, whether to incorporate titles and promotions, hiring people from a friend's company, managing your own psychology while the company relies on you, what to do when smart people are bad employees, why founder CEOs are preferred, and whether and how to sell your company.
Why it’s an important read
It's a gut punch of reality that strips away the glamor of entrepreneurship and replaces it with the gritty, painful truth. Ben Horowitz doesn't offer a magic formula for success because one doesn't exist. Instead, he provides a companion for the darkest hours of leadership. As Horowitz puts it, there's no recipe for leading a group of people out of trouble. He teaches that managing your own psychology is the most critical skill, and that there is no substitute for courage and intellectual honesty.
