Ben Horowitz Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Ben Horowitz

  Baby, Motivation, Hours

  46 Copy quote

• 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

  Stress, Focus, Management

  15 Copy quote

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

  Ben Horowitz

  Differences, People, Vision

  16 Copy quote

• In my experience as CEO, I found that the most important decisions tested my courage far more than my intelligence.

  Ben Horowitz

  Decision, Important, Found

  "The Fine Line Between Fear and Courage" by Ben Horowitz, www.businessinsider.com. August 8, 2011.

  15 Copy quote

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

  Ben Horowitz

  Believe, Inspiration, Needs

  15 Copy quote

• 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, Stories, Remember

  11 Copy quote

• 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.

  Ben Horowitz

  Jobs, Inspiration, People

  7 Copy quote

• The primary thing that any technology startup must do is build a product that's at least 10 times better at doing something than the current prevailing way of doing that thing. Two or three times better will not be good enough to get people to switch to the new thing fast enough or in large enough volume to matter.

  Ben Horowitz

  Technology, Two, People

  "HOROWITZ: How To Build A Great Culture At Your Startup" by Ben Horowitz, www.businessinsider.com. December 19, 2012.

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• 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

  Smart, People, Problem

  9 Copy quote

• There are no shortcuts to knowledge, especially knowledge gained from personal experience. Following conventional wisdom and relying on shortcuts can be worse than knowing nothing at all.

  Ben Horowitz

  Knowing Nothing, Shortcuts, Knowledge Gained

  Ben Horowitz (2014). “The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers”, p.9, Harper Collins

  6 Copy quote

• Startup CEOs should not play the odds. When you are building a company, you must believe there is an answer and you cannot pay attention to your odds of finding it. You just have to find it. It matters not whether your chances are nine in ten or one in a thousand; your task is the same.

  Ben Horowitz

  Believe, Odds, Play

  10 Copy quote

• Billionaires prefer Black women. They are loyal and guard your interests. Black wives are for grown ups.

  Ben Horowitz

  Wife, Black, Loyal

  7 Copy quote

• You're better off being The Beatles than The Monkees, as a startup.

  Ben Horowitz

  Better Off

  6 Copy quote

• Nothing motivates a great employee more than a mission that's so important that it supersedes everyone's personal ambition.

  Ben Horowitz

  Ambition, Important, Missions

  "Every Executive In Your Company Should Have This Kind Of Ambition" by Ben Horowitz, www.businessinsider.com. August 30, 2010.

  2 Copy quote

• One of the great things about building a tech company is the amazing people that you can hire.

  Ben Horowitz

  People, Building, Great Things

  3 Copy quote

• 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.

  Ben Horowitz

  Views, Talking, Critical Decisions

  7 Copy quote

• In all the difficult decisions that I made through the course of running Loudcloud and Opsware, I never once felt brave. In fact, I often felt scared to death. I never lost those feelings, but after much practice, I learned to ignore them. That learning process might also be called the courage development process.

  Ben Horowitz

  Running, Practice, Decision

  "The Fine Line Between Fear and Courage". www.businessinsider.com. August 8, 2011.

  48 Copy quote

• Sometimes an organization doesn’t need a solution; it just needs clarity.

  Ben Horowitz

  Organization, Needs, Clarity

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• Breakthrough ideas usually come from guys who look like they're hallucinating

  Ben Horowitz

  Ideas, Guy, Looks

  0 Copy quote

• The most important thing you can learn as CEO- one of the hardest things to do is, you have to discipline yourself to see your company... through the eyes of the people that you're working through. Through the eyes of the employees, through the eyes of your partners... through the eyes of the people who you're not talking to and who are not in the room.

  Ben Horowitz

  Eye, Talking, Discipline

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• The right thing to do is to thank them for their work, let people know that they're moving on, and ... you don't really have to explain all their personal details. It's more important to leave them with their dignity... and let them go on to live another day. Remember, what you say at that meeting, that's their reputation.

  Ben Horowitz

  Moving, People, Important

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

  Ben Horowitz

  Sheep, Venture, Lemmings

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• The key to high-quality communication is trust, and its hard to trust somebody that you dont know.

  Ben Horowitz

  Communication, Keys, Quality

  0 Copy quote

• How do you make your company a good place to work in general? That's a really really really large and complex set of skills. A lot of it is on the job training, combined with excellent mentorship.

  Ben Horowitz

  Jobs, Skills, Training

  "HOROWITZ TELLS ALL: This Guy Just Raised A $1.5 Billion Fund". Interview with Matt Rosoff, www.businessinsider.com. January 31, 2012.

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• Don't punk out and don't quit.

  Ben Horowitz

  Inspirational, Motivational, Quitting

  "This Is The Most Difficult Skill For CEOs To Learn" by Ben Horowitz, www.businessinsider.com. April 1, 2011.

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