The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Ratings86
Average rating4.1
One of the best business biographies I've read - up there with Andy Grove, Henry Ford and Sam Walton. And definitely the most honest and heartfelt. Brilliant.
I admit this book was not for me and was hyped to be something I should have anticipated. This is great if you're a big publicly-traded company. Or if you have dozens or hundreds of employees. Or if you're into the world of Silicon Valley tech startups.
I'm a service business of 3 in middle America. None of this relates to me in the least. Points for being detailed where other books bluster. But not ideal for truly small businesses.
First third is a totally fascinating story of how he got started with his business and how the tech world has progressed as a whole. The rest of it (advice, lessons learned) is must read material for CEOs or entrepreneurs managing people.
Until reading Ben Horowitz's book, ‘The Hard Thing About Hard Things,' I knew that he's a successful VC but didn't realize that what made him such was his previous career as a Co-founder and CEO, who struggled hard before his company acquired.
This book is teaching a lot about leadership and taking care of your people.
“Spend zero time on what you could have done and devote all of your time on what you might do. Because in the end, nobody cares; just run your company” (p. 92)
“There are always a thousand things that can go wrong and sink the ship. If you focus too much on them, you will drive yourself nuts and likely crash your company. Focus on where you are going rather than on what you hope to avoid” (p. 207)
one of the books that taught me that running a company is easy, while running a successful company is quite the opposite. and most importantly: why is it so?
It's the type of books you'd want to have read ten years ago.
Way above my league, still thrilling to read. It requires time to digest.
A lot of Silicon Valley brainwashing and “look at me how incredibly smart I am and everyone else is a dumbass”. But still a lot of nuggets of good and actionable advices. So I would recommend reading it, but don't follow it by the letter.