Words of Wisdom from Ben Horowitz

by Scott Edward Walker on February 26th, 2014

Ben & Mark

To Our Clients & Friends: Welcome to our weekly series “Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed.”  Each week (or two), we share a favorite video of a successful entrepreneur, investor or business leader on a variety of topics.  This week, we present Ben Horowitz, co-founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz and a former entrepreneur.

In this interesting interview by Mark Suster a few weeks ago (courtesy of the Startup Grind), Ben shares some solid nuggets for entrepreneurs, including the following:

  • “All the real long-lasting companies are run by their founders.” (at 3:33)
  • “It’s torture – being an entrepreneur is hard.” (at 4:03)
  • “If you’re an innovator, thinking like other people is the worst thing you can possibly do.” (at 10:33)
  • “You just have to focus your mind on what you can do – not what you can’t do.” (at 15:13)
  • “You don’t want to let your anxiety drive your decision [in choosing a co-founder].” (at 17:52)
  • “Be careful about going into business with your buddies.” (at 18:20)
  • “Work with people who you know for a while and respect – and feel like you can be teammates for a long, long time.” (at 19:17)
  • “The big thing that separates a leader from a politician is the ability to do things that are very unpopular.” (at 27:12)
  • “Nobody is good at being CEO when they start out… It’s a job that’s very unnatural – and you have learn on the job.” (at 30:09)
  • “You want to raise money with the thought that ‘what happens if the capital markets get way worse on my next round?’; and that’s how you should think about both the amount and the funder.” (at 33:33)

I hope you enjoy it.  Cheers, Scott

With all this work I got no time to play (OK)
Cash come and go, and I want mine to stay
Alot of these fake cats won't mind the day
I get an unfair play, then the stairway
That's why I'm like TWA, the airway -Diddy

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