Ben Horowitz Quotes

Quotes about:

Communication Decisions Employees Management Mistakes Running

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

Ben Horowitz

Baby, Motivation, Hours

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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.

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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

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The trouble with innovation is that truly innovative ideas often look like bad ideas at the time.

Ben Horowitz

Ideas, Innovation, Looks

"The Future of the Car Is Electric" by atrick Daniel, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 17, 2015.

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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

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

Ben Horowitz

Believe, Inspiration, Needs

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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

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

Ben Horowitz

Organization, Needs, Clarity

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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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Every time you make the hard, correct decision you become a bit more courageous, and every time you make the easy, wrong decision you become a bit more cowardly. If you are CEO, these choices will lead to a courageous or cowardly company.

Ben Horowitz

Decision, Choices, Courageous

"Ben Horowitz: There's a fine line between fear and courage". fortune.com. August 5, 2011.

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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

Ben Horowitz

Wife, Black, Loyal

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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

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It turns out that is exactly what product strategy is all about—figuring out the right product is the innovator’s job, not the customer’s job.

Ben Horowitz

Jobs, Strategy, Turns

"The Hard Thing About Hard Things". Book by Ben Horowitz, March 4, 2014.

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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

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Note to self: It’s a good idea to ask, “What am I not doing?

Ben Horowitz

Self, Ideas, Notes

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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

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

Ben Horowitz

Better Off

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There are no silver bullets.

Ben Horowitz

Growth, Bullets, Silver Bullets

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

Ben Horowitz

People, Building, Great Things

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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.

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I don’t believe in statistics. I believe in calculus.

Ben Horowitz

Believe, Statistics, Calculus

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Born: June 13, 1966
Occupation: Businessman
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