Review of Ben Horowitz’s Book:
The Best Things About The Best Book
Ben Horowitz’s book, The Hard Thing about Hard Things, is the best business book I have ever read.
Now who the fuck am I to drop the “ever” word? Nobody really, but I read a ton and get an hour of audiobooks in every day on Highway 280.
In the past 8 years as both a founder / operator and as an investor, I’ve read many books that presented great insights such as “Good to Great”, “The Innovator’s Dilemma”, “First, Break All the Rules”, “Emotional Intelligence”, “High Output Management”, “Zero to One”, etc.
What makes Ben’s book stand out? It’s raw—the total “let me be crystal clear with you” kind of raw. Most management books make you feel warm and fuzzy, inspired to make some changes in the way you do things, whiteboard out some ideas, and so on. Ben’s book? It kicks your ass psychologically. You better get to work. Now.
Here are a few things that burned into my brain:
Authentic
You have to be you. If building a company or solving a particular problem doesn’t turn you on, go do something else.
In a startup, being honest with yourself and with the situation you are in is the most time efficient way to run a company.
LoudCloud and Opsware, the two companies that Ben ran, were both in wartime. They were fighting for their survival and growth every day. There was no time to sugarcoat and then spend even more time to hold up those untruths.
But people don’t always like the honest answer. It is, of course, an emotional thing. The resolution is to be authentic. When talking with the team, being honest and authentic will help people understand you are fair and transparent, even if they don’t like the message you are delivering.
You owe it to yourself and your company to be honest and authentic.
“Caesar make you a believer. Now I never ever did it for a throne.
That validation comes from giving it back to the people. Now sing this song and it goes like
Raise those hands, this is our party
We came here to live life like nobody was watching”
—Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Can’t Hold Us
Unique
In any particular situation in the dynamic world of technology, the answer is not the same as another situation that came before that. In particular, in war time, the CEO and team doesn’t have the luxury of time to study other business cases.
Analogies in business are useful to a point. There are two types of analogies. A first type is a general analogy that helps convey an idea quickly. The second type is using an analogy to make operating decisions. That second type is both intellectually dumb and dangerous.
Just because ABC corporation made a move and was successful, doesn’t mean your company should make the same move. Just because an executive was successful at a prior job, doesn’t mean she will be successful in your scrappy, rapidly changing company.
Instead, we need to get to first principles reasoning (FPR). That means boiling things down to some fundamental truths and then reason up from there. It takes a lot more mental energy but is worth it. FPR is the work needed to figure out which executive would be a good fit for your company, at your current stage. FPR is needed to figure out what is the best product to build for your customers. FPR is needed to figure out which market does your company have the right skill-set to tackle, and so on.
Every situation is unique and sometimes, you really do have one opportunity to survive and thrive.
“I’ve got to formulate a plot or I end up in jail or shot
Success is my only motherfucking option, failure’s not
Mom, I love you, but this trailer’s got to go
I cannot grow old in Salem’s lot
So here I go it’s my shot.
Feet, fail me not, this may be the only opportunity that I got”
—Eminem, Lost Yourself
Weird
“Mike, he doesn’t need his name up in lights
He just wants to be heard whether it’s the beat or the mic
He feels so unlike everybody else, alone
In spite of the fact that some people still think that they know him”
—Fort Minor, Remember the Name
A founder may feel like nobody understands him. It’s OK to accept weirdness in yourself and develop your own superpowers.
Again, everyone is unique and to be authentic, you have to harness your set of strength and hire a team with other strength to complement you.
There are so many moving pieces in a startup that the key to winning is to find strength, not avoid weakness. Avoiding weakness will mean that you will avoid doing anything terrible, but it will also get you an average team and an average product. In a startup, average is death.
To do something extraordinary, you have to deviate from the mean.
The Final Word:
Do yourself a huge career favor and read the book. Not notes on the book, not reviews about the book, not blog posts on the book (like this one), but the whole damn book.
If you found value in this article, it would mean a lot to me if you hit the recommend button.
I would love to hear from you @gsvpioneers.
