Book: What you do is who you are
Book by Ben Horowitz
Quotes and thoughts from the book
- p.10 “if silicon valley is about anything, it’s about the primacy of the idea”
- P12 startups that outsource their engineering, they almost always fail. Why? It turns out that it’s easy to build an app or website that meets the specification of some initial idea, but far more difficult to build something that will scale, evolve, handle edge cases gracefully, etc.
- a great engineer will only invest the time and effort to do all those things, to build a product that will grow with the company, if she has ownership int he company – literally as well figuratively.
…that’s exactly what we are doing at Stellar Talents: building SaaS with top developers who have a large chunk of equity and revenue share, in order to make them extremely motivated about what they do!
…while I was about to type Stellar Talents someone else came up Antonella Stellacci !!! How are you doing? …now back to reading 😜
- P18 This book aims to help you do the things you need to do so you can be who you want to be.
Chapter 1
- As Peter thiel says…you have to believe something that no one else believes…
That makes me wonder, what do I believe that no one else believes? About talent whether developers or influencers.
Talent is universal opportunity is not.
You can earn revenue also with Influencers that have 100k followers.
- By 1799: fewer than 500k slaves were brought to US, while Haiti had 900k slaves, by 1789 the US had 700k and Haiti 400k…the island was a slaughter house!
- Haiti provided half of the sugar and a
- Louviture…born in 1743, greatest horsemen, immensely energetic, slept 2 hours a day, he read through his master’s library. Caesar’s work helped him understand politics.
- 1776 he was freed. Fewer than 1 in a 1,000 black man.
- 1779 he leased a coffee plantation,
- 1784 when he read a famous passage…”a corageuous chief is needed…where is he?” supposedly he read it many times
- 1789 French revolution news, uprising of 50,000 men, waiting to see how it would go
- He joined as 47, bricketor general,
- 1791 the made such progress they sent 13,000 troops, then Spain and UK tried to attack. They joined Spain against French…thrn joined again the French.
- Then the British came….defensive posture for 2 years, 12,000 of the 20,000 soldiers were buried there. Defeated his second
- 1801 he invaded Santo Domingo, and kicked out the Spanish. Abolished slavery.
- 7 ways he changed slave culture:
- Keep what works (ex. Songs sang by slaves at midnight into an advanced communication technology allowing them to attack at the same time).
- Military skills brought by Angola fighters particularly of fighting in the woods.
- Create shocking rules (married officers they had to respect their vows and can’t have a concubine – which was used as rule to enforce how trust was key)
- Dress for success (most of his soldiers didn’t have clothes, so they started dressed in the most elaborate way possible)
- Incorporate outside leadership (Julius Cesar did this with the Roman empire with rulers that were defeated) so he incorporated French officers in the army
- Build a product or service that people want.
Established that revolution wasn’t about revenge and economic well being of the island was the key priority.
7. Walk the talk. He charged at his troops head. His word was law.
Love how Ben Horowitz is trashing Uber new management for adding to the new values a very simplistic phrase “Do the right thing. Period.” which doesn’t necessarily highlight the importance of ethics since it could refer to closing the quarter over quota.
Chapter 3 – the way of the warrior
Chapter 5 – Shaka Senghor applied
- P129 Heisenberg uncertainty principle of management: act of trying to measure your culture changes the result.
- Your managers will tell you what they think you want to hear.
- Study your new employees to understand your culture, making sure you ask them for the bad stuff, the practices or assumptions that made them feel uncomfortable
Change culture through constant contact
- P137 If you have a crisis situation and you need the team to execute, meet with them every day and even twice a day if necessary. That will show them this is a top priority. At the beginning of each meeting you say “where’s my money?”
Chapter 9 edge cases and object lessons
You’re quite hostile, I’ve got a right to be hostile, my people have been persecuted. Public enemy
Sad to say that from limited interactions with partners at Andreessen Horowitz I didn’t see Partners following the rule of giving feedback.
P.205–6 didn’t really understand the story of Sheila and the company…only passage that wasn’t very clear
Signs you are off track:
- The wrong people are quitting too often
- You are failing at your top priorities
- An employee does something that truly shocks you
P229–30 deserves a separate presentation
