Ben Horowitz Quotes - Page 2

English - Businessman Born: June 13, 1966

In life, you don't have a level of confrontation and the nonsense you run into when you're a CEO. CEOs aren't born.

Life You Born Run

Look - this is the terror of being a founder & CEO. It is all your fault. Every decision, every person you hire, every dumb thing you buy or do - ultimately, you're at the end.

Look Decision You End

As long as people are clear on what they need to do and what's going on, you're very likely to succeed. When nobody is clear, then you're guaranteed to fail.

People You Long Nobody

I'm a huge believer in clarity.

Clarity Believer Huge

From a systematic standpoint, I think that capitalism is the best system. I can spend a lot of time explaining why I like communism, but it is actually not a good solution. Nor is socialism. So, capitalism is the right model.

Good Best Time Think

Some libertarians say, 'Well, if people work harder, they can make more money.' But, you know, my mother is a nurse and I am a venture capitalist. I think no matter how great a nurse she is, she wouldn't earn a one-thousandth of what I can make, if that.

Work Mother I Am Great

One person is never as stupid as a group of people. That's why they have lynch mobs, not lynch individuals.

People Stupid Person Never

Most of my job and most of what I do is to mentor people. There are a lot of people I work with that I don't have investments in.

Work People Job Mentor

Groupon looked like a very high valuation, but any investment in a great company at any stage is almost always a good investment.

Good Great High Always

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.

You Remember Hard Easy

In a company, hundreds of decisions get made, but objectives and goals are thin.

Goals Decisions Company Get

I think that business book reporting, it's all Jim Collins, it's the story of victory; it's success bias over and over again.

Success Business Book Victory

I think when companies are struggling, they don't want to talk to the press. The guys who write business books aren't interested in it because nobody wants to learn what it's like to be a mess, you want to learn how to be successful. That's slanted the whole thing quite a bit.

Business You Think Nobody

You can't worry about the mistakes, because you're going to make a lot of them. You've got to be thinking about your next move.

You Thinking Mistakes Worry

When I was a CEO, the books on management that I read weren't very much help after the first few months on the job. They were all designed to give you directions on how not to screw up your company.

You Job Management Your

Most books on management are written by management consultants, and they study successful companies after they've succeeded, so they only hear winning stories.

Winning Management Study Only

I do think a lot of people are trying to do important things still, and I think it is really a great thing that entrepreneurship is getting easier. When I started, it was just much harder to begin a company.

Great People Think Important

The bad thing about young people starting a company is that sometimes they do it for the wrong reasons or because they have the wrong skill set, but the good thing is that they don't have any of the old paradigms baked into them, so they have a lot of the bright new ideas that are harder to come by as you get older.

Good People You Ideas

You have to be responsible when you're running an organization, and firing people who are your friends is part of that responsibility.

Friends People Responsibility You

The laws of business physics have been broken in terms of how many customers you can acquire and how fast. No one in history has ever acquired 450 million customers in the same amount of time that WhatsApp did.

History Time Business Broken

As a company gets big, the information that informs decision-making gets massive. Depending upon the prism through which you view the business, your perspective will vary. If two people are in charge, this variance will cause conflict and delay.

Business Perspective People You

If somebody's going on your board, and you're going to be C.E.O., it will help if that person knows how to be C.E.O., who has done it before.

You Person Your Help

When you found a company, you have the original vision, you make all the original decisions, you know every employee, you kind of know every aspect of the product architecture and its limitations.

Architecture Vision You Know

Nobody is actually a natural C.E.O.

Nobody Natural Actually

The implications of so many people connected to the Internet all the time from the standpoint of education is incredible.

Education Time People Internet

Going public today is fraught with peril on many levels. One is earnings guidance. If you miss guidance, the stock price becomes very volatile. Short sellers can put a tremendous downward pressure on the stock.

Today You Short Pressure

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