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

Ben Horowitz, cofounder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley’s most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, offers essential leadership advice on building and running a startup―practical wisdom for managing the toughest problems business school doesn’t cover, based on his popular ben’s blog.

While many people talk about how great it is to start a business, very few are honest about how difficult entrepreneurship is when it comes to running one. Ben Horowitz analyzes the problems that confront leaders every day, sharing the insights he’s gained developing, managing, selling, buying, investing in, and supervising technology companies. A lifelong rap fanatic, he amplifies business lessons with lyrics from his favorite songs, telling it straight about everything from firing friends to poaching competitors, cultivating and sustaining a CEO mentality to knowing the right time to cash in.

Filled with his trademark humor and straight talk, The Hard Thing About Hard Things is an invaluable management book for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures, drawing from Horowitz's personal and often humbling experiences.

This is not another theoretical management guide. It’s a field manual for the toughest challenges you’ll face as a leader:

• The CEO Mentality: Learn how to make the right call when there are no good options, from firing loyal friends to knowing the right time to cash in.
• Startup Advice: Get unflinching, practical wisdom for the real problems business school doesn’t cover, drawn from Horowitz’s own humbling experiences.
• Wartime Leadership: Understand the hard-won insights gained from developing, managing, and selling technology companies through the dot-com crash and beyond.
• Unconventional Wisdom: See how lessons from his favorite rap songs can be amplified to solve the most complex business challenges.

Ben Horowitz is the cofounder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, a Silicon Valley–based venture capital firm that invests in entrepreneurs building the next generation of leading technology companies. The firm's investments include Airbnb, GitHub, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Previously he was cofounder and CEO of Opsware, formerly Loudcloud, which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion in 2007. Horowitz writes about his experiences and insights from his career as a computer science student, software engineer, cofounder, CEO, and investor in a blog that is read by nearly ten million people. He has also been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the New Yorker, Fortune, the Economist, and Bloomberg Businessweek, among others. Horowitz lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Felicia.