Best 64 quotes of Ben Horowitz on MyQuotes

Volatility and length, that's the value on an option. 10 years on a startup stock, that's a big valuable thing.

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

What do you get when you cross a herd of sheep with a herd of lemmings? A herd of venture capitalists.

When I was CEO, and I'd listen to music, a lot of people listen to music and you get inspiration from it. And a lot of things in hip hop are very instructive for being in business. Particularly, hip hop is a lot about business, and so it was very useful for me in any job.

When raising money, you want to look through the lens of 'What happens when things go wrong?'

When you're making a critical decision, you have to understand how it's going to be interpreted from all points of view. Not just your point of view, not just the person you're talking to, but the people that aren't in the room. Everybody else.

Yeah, I became a successful entrepreneur... Eventually

You don't need every investor to believe that you can succeed. You only need one.

You know what the difference between a vision and a hallucination is? They call it a vision when other people can see it.

Your employees know each other better than they know you.

Bill Campbell: "It's not about the money." Ben Horowitz: "What's it about, Bill?" Bill: "It's about the FUCKING money.

In good organizations, people can focus on their work and have confidence that if they get their work done, good things will happen for both the company and them personally. It is a true pleasure to work in an organization such as this. Every person can wake up knowing that the work they do will be efficient, effective, and make a difference for the organization and themselves. These things make their jobs both motivating and fulfilling. “In a poor organization, on the other hand, people spend much of their time fighting organizational boundaries, infighting, and broken processes. They are not even clear on what their jobs are, so there is no way to know if they are getting the job done or not. In the miracle case that they work ridiculous hours and get the job done, they have no idea what it means for the company or their careers. To make it all much worse and rub salt in the wound, when they finally work up the courage to tell management how fucked-up their situation is, management denies there is a problem, then defends the status quo, then ignores the problem.

There are two kinds of cultures in this world: cultures where what you do matters and cultures where all that matters is who you are. You can be the former or you can suck.

There is no silver bullet that’s going to fix that. No, we are going to have to use a lot of lead bullets.