a book

The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

Name: The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
Rating: 5 (58 reviews)
Author: Ben Horowitz
ISBN: 9780062273208

Ben Horowitz · 2014 · 289 pages

A lot of people talk about how great it is to start a business, but only Ben Horowitz is brutally honest about how hard it is to run one. 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 blog has garnered a devoted following of millions of readers who have come to rely on him to help them run their businesses. A lifelong rap fan, Horowitz amplifies business lessons with lyrics from his favorite songs and tells it straight about everything from firing friends to poaching competitors, from cultivating and sustaining a CEO mentality to knowing the right time to cash in. 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.

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recommended by 58 people

sourced from public statements

Andrej Karpathy
“to-read”
Peter Thiel
“Ben Horowitz has written the first true guide for protecting a startup from self-sabotage.”↗
Max Levchin
“Q. - What's your favourite business book you'd advise to young entrepreneurs and why? M.L. -Some good ones from the "pure business" category: Zero to One, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, The Innovator's Dilemma, Good to Great, etc. Personally, I prefer less advice, more history. From my favorite business segment: Too Big To Fail, Ascent of Money, When Genius Failed, etc. Books on applied psychology (Influence, Predictably Irrational, etc) are another way to round out primarily technological education :)”↗
Andrew Chen
“7. Ben Horowitz’s book The Hard Things About Hard Things is the best book about being a CEO and managing your own psychology as you set out to do this crazy hard thing. It’s fantastic. Read and re-read it.”↗
Bryan Johnson
“I think there is just – it is hard to do hard things, I guess as Ben Horowitz would say and having the ability to be vulnerable and be honest and transparent and raw with other people is immensely helpful for me.”↗
Changpeng Zhao
“@UniHodler Yup, great book.”↗
Peter Rex
“21/ Hard Thing about Hard Things. @bhorowitz delves into the hardest situations a CEO will face, and how to move forward where there are no good answers. This is a great book to understand what it means to have the buck stop with you, i.e. act as an entrepreneur.”↗
Andrew Ng
“Then finally there is “The Hard Thing about Hard Things.” It’s a bit dark but it does cover a lot of useful territory on what building an organization is like.”↗
Michael Dell
“This book is loaded with great lessons and advice from a successful leader and innovator.”↗
Larry Page
“An inspiring story of a business rebirth through sheer willpower.”↗
Biz Stone
“@MikeIsaac Horowitz’s book is good. Happy New Year Mike!”↗
Scott Kupor
“@BooValu23 @portfoliobooks @a16z Honestly, I don't think there are too many out there - best business book generally is @bhorowitz Hard Things About Hard Things”↗
Luis von Ahn
“I like this one, but it’s not for very new entrepreneurs.”↗
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