Top all-time · #208
Ben Horowitz
Personal blog · bhorowitz.comstartupsbusiness
Ben Horowitz writes Andreessen Horowitz, a personal blog at bhorowitz.com about startups and business. Since 2010, 213 different Hacker News readers have linked it 307 times, most often “Why We Prefer Founding CEOs”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Sometimes recommended · 12 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Ben Horowitz's blog for practical management and startup advice: CEO psychology, peacetime vs wartime CEOs, layoffs, and politics inside companies.
- Recommended for · 12 comments
- Called great, the best essay on peacetime vs wartime CEOs, and interesting on layoffs and minimizing politics.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Ben Horowitz is a cofounder and general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The
Most-linked posts?
- Why We Prefer Founding CEOs10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2010-04-28
- How to Minimize Politics in Your Company (2010)10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2014-03-16
- How to Minimize Politics in Your Company 8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2010-08-24
- Why we prefer founding CEOs (2010)6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2014-03-25
- The Most Difficult CEO Skill? Managing Your Own Psychology (2011)5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2011-05-06
- The most difficult skill5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2014-03-19
- Why Startups Should Train Their People5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2010-05-15
- How Andreessen Horowitz Evaluates CEOs 5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2010-05-31
- Ron Conway Explained5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2010-04-07
- Bubble Trouble? I Don’t Think So4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2011-03-24
What Hacker News says?
I am enjoying reading High Output Management as well. If you like that, you might enjoy this intro to the new version from Ben Horowitz: http://www.bhorowitz.com/high-output-management
Comment linking /high-output-management
on “Andy Grove has died”Submitted Why I Did Not Go To Jail as a story · 580 points
HN discussionBen Horowitz "How to Minimize Politics in Your Company" http://www.bhorowitz.com/how_to_minimize_politics_in_your_co... Great article and very relevant here.
Comment linking /how_to_minimize_politics_in_your_company
on “Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit”Submitted Instagram as a story · 469 points
HN discussionRegarding that article, it's a few entries down on HN's front page (March 16th): http://www.bhorowitz.com/how_to_minimize_politics_in_your_co... lol
Comment linking /how_to_minimize_politics_in_your_company
on “Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit”Submitted How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process as a story · 404 points
HN discussionI think the article you mention is Ben Horowitz's blog on 'How to Minimize Politics in Your Company'[1]. It's a great read and also has advice for CEOs dealing with disputes between executives. [1] http://www.bhorowitz.com/how_to_minimize_politics_in_your_co...
Comment linking /how_to_minimize_politics_in_your_company
on “Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit”Submitted The most difficult CEO skill: managing your own psychology as a story · 286 points
HN discussionI know that. In fact, I expect that the first four minutes would be spent defining most of the words in that paragraph. And thats assuming you have someone who "clicks" on it the first time around. If they don't, it's going to take a while. Part of the problem is that as you put it, most people don't care. And it's just too costly (in all senses of the word) to really educate people about "computer stuff". This is w…
Comment linking /2011/10/26/lead-bullets/
on “Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive”Submitted Nobody Cares as a story · 231 points
HN discussionJust reminds me of: "Ron wrote back in literally 2 minutes and said, in what I have learned is Ron’s distinctive email style (immediate, short, all caps), “AM ON IT.”" ( http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/07/ron-conway-explained/ ) The format seems more IM-over-email than "email where important shit goes down."
Comment linking /2010/04/07/ron-conway-explained/
on “Subject: Airbnb”Submitted Making Yourself a CEO as a story · 221 points
HN discussionBen Horowitz begins all of his blog posts with rap lyrics: http://www.bhorowitz.com/
Comment linking /
on “Make Money Online: Documenting 10 Years of Failure”Submitted How to Minimize Politics in Your Company as a story · 209 points
HN discussionThe two are not equivalent, as you need different attributes in each case. The CEO needs to have the product vision and complete information about the company (see http://www.bhorowitz.com/why_we_prefer_founding_ceos for discussion), which typically only the founding CEO can have. You'll note that this is a continuation of the role they had when the company was small, though of course it requires a massive amount of…
Comment linking /why_we_prefer_founding_ceos
on “Ask HN: What's left for early startup engineers as the company grows?”Submitted How to Minimize Politics in Your Company (2010) as a story · 201 points
HN discussionI put together a really quick valuation multiples analysis based on financial info from the S-1: https://twitter.com/#!/daranda/status/164854828957310978/pho... Disclaimer: This analysis is flawed - Using multiples is not a perfect method to understand the valuation of a business. It's one of many. It's a proxy. It's quick. - This chart uses 2011 financial data. Facebook is growing fast - their multiples would come…
Comment linking /2011/03/24/bubble-trouble-i-don%E2%80%99t-think-so/
on “Facebook's S-1 Filing”Submitted VMware Buys Nicira for $1.26B as a story · 175 points
HN discussionI keep thinking of Ben Horowitz's article about Peacetime verse Wartime CEO ( http://bhorowitz.com/2011/04/15/peacetime-ceowartime-ceo ) Larry Page took over when Google went to war with Facebook. A lot of stuff gets sacrificed during wartime.
Comment linking /2011/04/15/peacetime-ceowartime-ceo
on “Google's Decline Really Bugs Me”Submitted Why Founders Fail: The Product CEO Paradox (2013) as a story · 173 points
HN discussionhttp://www.bhorowitz.com/the_legend_of_the_blind_mc
Comment linking /the_legend_of_the_blind_mc
on “How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process”Submitted Cash Flow and Destiny as a story · 167 points
HN discussionHonestly, you need to get some self confidence. You need to man up. Being a nice guy in this scenario doesn't help. If the CTO wants to play dirty and ruthless. You must play dirty and ruthless. How did a guy you hire get the guts to tell you he wants to fire you as a co-founder. This means your other co-founder is probably ganging up with him behind your back. You cannot trust both of them. I don't know who owns mo…
Comment linking /programming_your_culture
on “Ask HN: CTO wants me to leave”Submitted The Most Difficult CEO Skill? Managing Your Own Psychology (2011) as a story · 155 points
HN discussionI remember reading this published insight[1] from Marissa Mayer a few months ago: Burnout is caused by resentment Which sounded amazing, until this guy who dated a neuroscientist commented[2]: No. Burnout is caused when you repeatedly make large amounts of sacrifice and or effort into high-risk problems that fail. It's the result of a negative prediction error in the nucleus accumbens. You effectively condition your…
Comment linking /2011/04/01/what%E2%80%99s-the-most-difficult-ceo-skill-managing-your-own-psychology/
on “Avoiding Burnout”Submitted Ben Horowitz: A Good Place to Work as a story · 152 points
HN discussionThe worst interpretation here is as a justification for lazy leadership. What it really means is that for leaders there is a higher expectation of emotional intelligence, or as Ben Horowitz puts it, your ability to manage your own psychology. http://www.bhorowitz.com/what_s_the_most_difficult_ceo_skill...
Comment linking /what_s_the_most_difficult_ceo_skill_managing_your_own_psychology
on “Three Stories”Submitted Who Do You Trust? as a story · 142 points
HN discussionI've always felt that Ben Horowitz's characterization was the best: http://bhorowitz.com/2011/04/15/peacetime-ceowartime-ceo/ TLDR Eric was a peacetime CEO and could allow the company to do the things he allowed. Larry is a wartime CEO. Hard decisions need to be made, and the company needs to be driven with focus.
Comment linking /2011/04/15/peacetime-ceowartime-ceo/
on “Why I left Google (2012)”Submitted Why Has Andreessen Horowitz Raised $2.7B in 3 Years? as a story · 139 points
HN discussion
