The Hard Thing About Hard Things

By Ben Horowitz

Categories: Business & Money

Plenty of people talk about how great it is to start a company. Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz, is honest about how hard it is to run one. Drawing on his own often humbling years building, selling, and investing in tech companies, and on his popular blog, he takes on the problems business school doesn't cover, from firing friends to knowing the right time to sell. He tells it straight, with humor and rap lyrics along the way.

Recommended by 19 people

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• Tony Fadell: “"The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Ben Horowitz's Honest And Real Take On Entrepreneurship" @bhorowitz”
• Larry Page: “Ben's book is a great read — with uncomfortable truths about entrepreneurship and how to lead to a company. It's also an inspiring story of a business rebirth through sheer willpower.”
• Dick Costolo: “Ben's advice has been invaluable to me over the past few years. He is forthright and direct, acknowledging, for example, that the job of leading can be impossibly lonely, while eloquently providing no-nonsense guidance for managing teams through good times and bad times. Stripping away the veneer of management-speak, Ben's writing carries the authority of somebody who has been through all of this. The results are simple, thorough, and compelling.”
• Peter Thiel: “Every management guide presumes that all great companies follow a formula. But successful startups don’t imitate; they build innovations that can't be copied. Ben Horowitz knows no recipe guarantees success, and with The Hard Thing About Hard Things, he has written the first true guide for protecting a startup from self-sabotage.”
• Mark Zuckerberg: “Ben's experience and expertise make him one of the most important leaders not just in Silicon Valley but in the global knowledge economy. For anyone interested in building, growing or leading a great company, this book is an incredibly valuable resource and a funny and insightful read.”
• Shane Parrish: “This is the best business book I’ve read in a long time. Perhaps one of the best ever. Ben Horowitz has been to hell and back and he’s got the scars to prove it.”