Book: The hard thing about hard thing - Ben Horowitz

Recently I read the book “The hard thing about hard thing” by Ben Horowitz. Ben is honest and real about how hard it is to run a business when a lot of people talk about how great it is to start one. He offers advice on surviving the rough startup life out there. He wrote his own story about founding, running, managing and selling Loudcloud and Opsware. He wrote business lessons with lyrics from rap songs and mention about different moments in your life as a startup founder like firing your friends, competitors, right time to cash in and the most important thing — surviving.

In the book he mention about how to control your own psychology as a CEO and founder.

By far the most difficult skill I learned as a CEO was the ability to manage my own psychology. Organizational design, process design, metrics, hiring and firing were all relatively straightforward skills to master compared with keeping my mind in check. I thought I was tough going into it, but I wasn’t tough. I was soft. Over the years I’ve spoken to hundreds of CEOs, all with the same experience. Nonetheless, very few people talk about it and I have never read anything on the topic. It’s like the fight club of management: the first rule of the CEO psychological meltdown is don’t talk about the psychological meltdown. At risk of violating the sacred rule, I will attempt to describe the condition and prescribe some techniques that helped me. In the end, this is the most personal and important battle that any CEO will face.