I was chatting with my buddy who is the VP of Product at MomentFeed, an online customer experience management platform for multi-location brands, and we talked about The Hard Thing About Hard Things a book by mega-investor and venture capitalist Ben Horowitz.
Entrepreneurship is not for everyone. There are many very tough decisions with no “right” answer. As such, I tell a lot of my clients that entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone. To the many up-sides, there are many down-sides that unless entrepreneurship is a calling, can be too much.
In The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley’s most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, 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.
His advice is grounded in anecdotes from his own hard-earned rise—from cofounding the early cloud service provider Loudcloud to building the phenomenally successful Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm, both with fellow tech superstar Marc Andreessen (inventor of Mosaic, the Internet’s first popular Web browser). This is no polished victory lap; he analyzes issues with no easy answers through his trials, including demoting (or firing) a loyal friend;
whether you should incorporate titles and promotions, and how to handle them;
if it’s OK to hire people from your friend’s company;
how to manage your own psychology, while the whole company is relying on you;
what to do when smart people are bad employees;
why Andreessen Horowitz prefers founder CEOs, and how to become one;
whether you should sell your company, and how to do it.
Filled with Horowitz’s trademark humor and straight talk, and drawing from his personal and often humbling experiences, The Hard Thing About Hard Things is invaluable for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures.
An eye-opening, sobering, and inspiring read. Recommended for anyone interested in business.
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