I described the CEO job as knowing what to do and getting the company to do what you want. Designing a proper company culture will help you get your company to do what you want in certain important areas for a very long time. Ben Horowitz Read Quote
Good shareholder activists have incredible interest in the company because they own a lot of it. Ben Horowitz Read Quote
John D. Rockefeller said that he found friendships based on business to be far more long lasting and profitable than the reverse. I think there’s something to that. A company can end up being very Confucian, where the good of the individual is subjugated to the good of the whole. Ben Horowitz Read Quote
I think there’s a lot to be said about just enjoying your work. It can be very contrived when people say their work is for the good of mankind. Ben Horowitz Read Quote
If the employees fundamentally trust the C.E.O., then communications will be vastly more efficient than if they don’t. Telling things as they are is a critical part of building this trust. Ben Horowitz Read Quote
Many of the people that you lay off will have closer relationships with the people who stay than you do, so treat them with an appropriate level of respect. Ben Horowitz Read Quote
I had a terrible time hiring rich people. It sounds funny, but the problem is when things go wrong they can ask, ‘Why am I doing this?’ You don’t ever want anybody asking that question. You want them to say, ‘I know why I’m doing it, I need the money, let’s go’ or whatever it is that draws them. Ben Horowitz Read Quote
I would have never wanted to write another management book. There are so many of them, and everybody says the same thing about them, and they are all the same – they give the exact same advice. It’s like a diet book; they all say eat less calories, exercise more, and every single book has the same conclusion. Ben Horowitz Read Quote
