Description:
What is this book about
Ben Horowitz, one of the most experienced and respected entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, shares his tips for building and growing startups. The author's advice touches on the most difficult problems that are usually not discussed in business schools.
A lot of people like to talk about how great it is to have your own business. Units say that it is very difficult. Ben Horowitz is one of the latter. He objectively analyzes the challenges leaders face on a daily basis and offers solutions based on his experience in startup development, startup management, selling, advising and investing in startups. The book is full of the author's trademark humor and his frank statements about business. It is useful for both experienced entrepreneurs and those who are just starting their first business. After reading it, you will learn how to deal with situations that do not have a simple solution, for example:
when you have to demote or fire a good friend;
when you need to hire a person from a company that belongs to your friend;
when smart people don't make good employees;
when to decide whether to sell a company
and in many other difficult situations.

Who is this book for?
This is a book for managers, entrepreneurs and those who are just about to start their own business.

Screenshots:

THE HARD THING ABOUT THE HARD THINGS

Building a Business

When There Are No

Easy Answers

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

Published with permission from Ben Horowiz, ICM Partners and Andrew Nurnberg Literary Agency

Copyright © 2014 Ben Horowitz

© Translation into Russian, edition in Russian, design. LLC "Mann, Ivanov and Ferber", 2015

All rights reserved. No part of the electronic version of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and corporate networks, for private and public use, without the written permission of the copyright owner.

Legal support of the publishing house is provided by the law firm "Vegas-Lex"

* * *

Dedicated to Felicia, Sophia, Maria and Bucher - my family, who shared with me all the difficulties and joys of creating this book.

Introduction

Brother, this is the real world, school is over

Your dreams were stolen, and who is not clear.

Kanye West (American rapper), Gorgeous

Every time I get my hands on a book on management or from the “Help Yourself” series, I catch myself thinking that all these recommendations are good, but in fact there was nothing particularly difficult in the situations described in the book.

It is not difficult to set a global, risky and audacious goal - it is very difficult to fire people when it becomes clear that it will not be possible to achieve it.

It's not hard to hire brilliant employees. To face the fact that these "brilliant employees" think they deserve special compensation is a much bigger problem.

It is not difficult to draw the organizational structure of a future company on paper - it is much more difficult to achieve effective interaction between employees within its framework.

It is not difficult to make global plans - it is hard to wake up in a cold sweat when your dreams suddenly turn into a nightmare.

The main disadvantage of such books is that they offer ready-made recipes for solving problems that, by definition, do not have ready-made solutions. There is not and cannot be a universal way out of a really difficult and rapidly developing situation. There is no one-size-fits-all recipe for building a company or getting people out of trouble. No one will tell you how to write a hit streak or how to be an NFL star. There are no guidelines that can guarantee winning a presidential election or motivate employees to continue working in a failing company. This is the most difficult thing in a difficult situation - there is no ready-made solution for it.

Nevertheless, there is someone else's experience and useful advice from people who have been in similar situations.

In this book, I am not trying to come up with a magic formula for solving problems; instead, I will simply tell my own story and describe the difficulties that I had to face. As an entrepreneur, CEO, and now a venture capitalist, I find my experience useful - especially when working with the new generation of venture capitalists. Creating your own business is inevitably associated with overcoming numerous difficulties. I also had to go through this and succeed. Circumstances may differ, but the existence of global patterns in business makes someone else's experience invaluable.

Over the past few years, I have summarized my experience in a series of blog posts that are read by millions of people. Many of them turned to me, wanting to know more about the prerequisites for the development of certain events. In this book, for the first time, I will tell the background of my entrepreneurial activity and at the same time give conclusions already published in blogs. I was inspired to write this book by many friends, family members and acquaintances who supported me throughout my career and passion for hip-hop and rap music. Since hip-hop musicians usually strive to achieve success not only in creativity, but also in business, considering themselves to be a kind of entrepreneur, many topics - competition, making money, misunderstanding from others - are probably relevant to them too. I share my experience in the hope of suggesting something and inspiring those people who are desperately striving to build something of their own from scratch to continue the struggle.

Chapter 1
From communist to venture capitalist

It's all I live for.

My wife, my children, my life.

But in the night I belong to Him, and rightly so.

My ups and downs, my dreams, my failures

My trials and tribulations, my heart...

DMX (Earl Simmons, American Rapper), Who We Be

I once hosted a huge barbecue evening at my house and invited 100 of my closest friends. Such parties are not uncommon for our family: my brother-in-law Courtney and I have been throwing them for many years in a row. Thanks to my talent in this business, I even got the nickname Jackie Robinson Barbecue from my African-American friends, thus destroying the racial stereotype.

This time at the party, the conversation turned to the great rapper Nas. My friend Tristan Walker, a young African-American entrepreneur, proudly claimed that he and Nas were neighbors and lived in Queensbridge, New York, one of the largest low-income housing estates in the United States. My seventy-three-year-old Jewish father interjected, "I've been to Queensbridge." Convinced that there was no way an elderly white man could be there, Tristan said, “You must be referring to Queens. After all, Queensbridge is a very disadvantaged area. But my father insisted: "No, it was Queensbridge."

I told Tristan that my father grew up in Queens, so I could hardly confuse these areas, and then I asked my father: “What were you doing in Queensbridge?” He replied: “At the age of eleven, I distributed communist leaflets and pamphlets there. I remember it very well, because my mother was upset that the Communist Party sent me to such areas. She thought it was too dangerous for a small child."

My grandfather and grandmother were communists. Due to political activity, my grandfather Phil Horowitz lost his job as a schoolteacher during the McCarthy era. My father grew up in a family with "leftist" beliefs and was familiar with "leftist" theories from childhood. In 1968, he moved our family to Berkeley, California, and began publishing the now-famous New Left magazine Ramparts.

As a result, I grew up in a city affectionately referred to by its inhabitants as the People's Republic of Berkeley. As a child, I was very shy and afraid of adults. When my mother took me to kindergarten for the first time, I wept bitterly. The teacher advised her to leave quickly, since such a reaction is quite normal for beginners. But when she returned three hours later, Elissa Horowitz found me wet with tears and still sobbing. The caregiver said that she never managed to calm me down, so my clothes were soaked through. This day was my first and last in kindergarten. If my mother had not been distinguished by angelic patience, I probably would never have gone to school. Despite the fact that all our acquaintances advised her to examine me with a psychiatrist, she patiently waited for me to adapt to the world around her, no matter how long it took.

When I was five years old, we moved from a house on Glen Avenue, which had become too small for a family of six, to a larger house on Bonita Avenue. In those days, this street was mostly middle-class Berkeley, and the area was somewhat different from others. Here lived hippies obsessed with their ideas, members of the lower class who worked hard to make their way to the top, as well as quite wealthy people addicted to drugs and slowly sliding down the social ladder. One day a friend of my older brother Jonathan Roger (not his real name) came to visit us. Он показал на маленького афроамериканского малыша, катавшего красную игрушечную тележку на углу квартала, и сказал: «Иди на угол и забери у этого мальчишки тележку, а если он попробует что-то сказать, просто плюнь ему в лицо и назови грязным ниггером».

Something needs to be clarified here. First, all this happened in Berkeley, where such things are by no means accepted. Мне никогда раньше не приходилось слышать слово «ниггер», и я понятия не имел, что оно означает, хотя и чувствовал, что это вовсе не комплимент. Secondly, Roger was not a racist and grew up in a very respectable family. His father was a professor at the University of Berkeley and was a wonderful person, like his mother. Only later did we learn that Roger had schizophrenia and the dark side of his personality attracted him to violence.

This order put me in a difficult position. On the one hand, I was afraid of Roger and knew that he would beat me severely for refusing to follow his instructions. On the other hand, it was even scarier to take the cart away from the boy. Damn it, I was afraid of everything! But it was impossible to stay close to Roger, so I went to the street corner to the boy. The distance did not exceed thirty meters, but they seemed to be thirty kilometers. Finally approaching the boy, I realized that I had to say something. "Can I ride in your cart?" - it broke out of me. Joel-Clark Jr. replied, "Of course." Turning around to see Roger's reaction, I found that he had gone. Apparently, the bright side of his personality took over, and he switched to another occupation. Joel and I played together until late in the evening and subsequently became best friends. 18 years later, he was best man at my wedding.

I have never told this story to anyone, and it was it that defined my life. Then I realized that being scared does not mean being helpless: it depended on my actions whether I became a hero or a coward. I often look back on that day and think: if I had done what Roger demanded, I would never have found my best friend. I also realized that until you try to get to know a person, you cannot judge him. There is no way to gain knowledge without difficulty, especially when it comes to knowledge gained from experience. Relying on worldly wisdom and knowledge shortcuts is even worse than not knowing anything at all.

Keep this bullshit to yourself

For many years I have struggled stubbornly with the tendency to judge by first impressions and blindly believe in banal truths. I was an A student in Berkeley - in this town even football was considered too aggressive a sport. Therefore, I was not supposed to join the Berkeley football team. But I did it, and under the circumstances, my act was a very brave decision. I had never played in any children's football teams before, so this was my first exposure to the sport. Nevertheless, the first children's lessons in overcoming fear turned out to be very useful. In high school football, the ability to cope with fear is 75% of success.

I will never forget the team's first meeting with head coach Chico Mendoza. He turned out to be an elderly, robust man who had once played for the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs. Coach Mendoza began his opening speech: “Some of you guys are going to be out of here soon; you don't want to take the game seriously. You get on a team and start talking too much, talking all sorts of nonsense, not doing a damn thing and just want to show off in your football uniform. But then you know what? Keep this bullshit to yourself." He further developed the idea of ​​what is meant by "nonsense": "Are you late for training? Keep this bullshit to yourself. Don't know how to make accurate throws? Keep this bullshit to yourself. Can you crawl on the grass? Keep this bullshit to yourself. Call me Chico? Keep this bullshit to yourself."

It was the most energetic, incendiary and poetic speech I have ever heard. I liked her very much. It was difficult to wait for the moment when I would return home and tell it to my mother. True, my mother was not delighted, but this did not make me like the speech less. Looking back, I realize that this was my first encounter with a real leader. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell says leadership is the ability to get people to follow you, if only out of curiosity. I was very interested in what Mendoza would say next.

I was the only student on the football team who majored in mathematics, so I rarely met my teammates in class. But as a result, my social circle expanded: I had to deal with people who look at life differently. It is amazing how different views on the same event depend on the worldview of a person. For example, the release of the album Hard Times by the rap group Run D.M.C. with his monotonous and aggressive rhythm of drums, he created a real sensation in the team, but it went almost unnoticed in my academic group. Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative caused a flurry of outrage in my study group, largely because of the controversial technical solutions on which it was based. Teammates did not show the slightest interest in her.

The need to perceive events from such different points of view taught me to separate the essence of facts from their assessment. This skill came in very handy when I became an entrepreneur and CEO. In particularly difficult cases, when the “facts” seemed to dictate a single version, I looked for alternative explanations and formed my own judgment only on the basis of the entire set of assessments. The very existence of an alternative and at the same time plausible scenario for the development of events sometimes helps to inspire hope and calm the agitated team.

"Blind date"

In the summer of 1986, I completed my sophomore year at Columbia College and stayed with my father, then living in Los Angeles. My friend and collegiate football teammate Claude Shaw arranged a blind date for me. Claude and I were going to have a foursome date with his girlfriend, Jackie Williams, and Felicia Wylie, who was meant for me, and cook a fancy dinner to celebrate. After carefully considering the menu, we spent the whole day in the kitchen: finally, by the appointed time of 19:00, everything was ready, including four beautifully decorated rib steaks. But the girls didn't show up. It had been an hour since the agreed time, and we were still not too worried. Jackie was notorious for her lack of punctuality, so why worry? However, an hour later, Claude decided to call back and clarify what had happened. Listening to his conversation, I looked in shock at our chic table with already cold dishes. It turned out that my failed girlfriend Felicia decided that she was too tired and did not want to go on a first date in such a state. Yeah. It's just disgusting!

I asked Claude to give me the phone and introduced myself: "Hi, this is Ben, your supposed beau."

Felicia: I'm sorry, but I'm too tired and it's getting late.

Ben: Of course it's late because you late.

Felicia: I know, but I'm just too tired to go anywhere.

At this point, I decided to appeal to her sense of compassion.

Ben: Of course, I understand your difficulties, but you could have been warned about this before we spent the whole day preparing dinner. And now you just have to get in the car and come, otherwise it will look rude and leave a very unpleasant impression.

If Felicia had been completely selfish, my speech would hardly have had an effect. But then it was not worth it to regret the broken date. If Felicia does not want to complete our acquaintance in this way, then maybe something will come of it.

Felicia: Okay, I'm leaving.

An hour and a half later, a beautiful-looking girl in white shorts knocked on the door. However, because of the experience, I completely forgot about the real fight in which I participated the day before. During an impromptu basketball game in the San Fernando Valley, a two-meter short-haired and camouflaged guy, who looked more like a member of some local gang, hit my brother Jonathan, a long-haired musician who at that time weighed no more than 70 kilograms, with a ball with a swing. But I played in the university team and was used to constant skirmishes, so I was always ready to act. Instantly assessing the situation, I rushed to the offender brother. A short fight ensued, and the "bandit" received several good blows. True, I also missed the oncoming hook with the right, as a result of which a black eye immediately appeared under the eye. It's entirely possible that the guy was just used to playing rough, and not trying to hit his brother on purpose, but since I didn't give myself time to think, now it's impossible to know.

Be that as it may, when I opened the door, I saw the astonished look of Felicia's lovely green eyes fixed on my black eye. As she told me years later, her first thought at the time was, “That’s a real thug! And why did I come here!

Fortunately, neither I nor she believed the first impression. We have been happily married for 25 years and raised three wonderful children.

Silicon Valley

During my summer vacation, I got a job as an engineer at a company called Silicon Graphics (SGI). The work turned out to be amazing. The company developed state-of-the-art computer graphics and released a range of innovative applications, from computer effects for the movie Terminator 2 to amazing 3D flight simulations. Everyone was a real genius, and the developments staggered the imagination. I would like to work here for the rest of my life.

After graduating from the College of Computer Science at Columbia University, I joined SGI. It was a dream come true and I really loved my job. A year later, I chanced upon former head of marketing at SGI, Rosalie Buonaro, who had started her own venture capital firm. Rosalie heard about me from her daughter, who also worked for SGI. She very persistently suggested that I go to her company and eventually persuaded me. Now I worked at NetLabs.

But this turned out to be a big mistake. The company was led by a former top manager of Hewlett-Packard and at the same time the husband of Rosalie Andre Schwager. The venture capitalists brought in Andre and Rosalie as a "professional management team". But, unfortunately, they were poorly versed in the products and technologies of the company, and as a result, they took on one or another crazy project. For the first time, I understood the role of competent management in a company.

Another problem was the fact that doctors diagnosed autism in our second daughter Maria, so I simply could not agree to an irregular working day in a startup - the family required a lot of attention.

One hot summer day my father decided to visit us. We couldn't afford air conditioning, so all three kids were crying from the heat, and my dad and I were bleeding. about sitting in the living room, where the temperature reached forty degrees.

My father turned to me and asked, "Son, do you know what's really cheap?" I had no idea what he was talking about, so I answered: “No, what?” He said: “Flowers. Flowers are very inexpensive. Do you know what is very expensive? I answered again: “No, what?” He said, "Divorce." Suddenly, this joke, which was only partly a joke, made me understand a simple thing: I have no more time. Up until this point, I hadn't made any big decisions. For some reason it seemed to me that unlimited possibilities were open before me and everything that I wanted could be achieved at the same time. But my father's joke made me realize that if I continue to act like this, then I will lose my family. In trying to achieve everything at once, I will lose sight of the most important thing. At that moment, for the first time, I forced myself to look at the future in terms of goals that were not only mine. I had to build a career, realize myself and create a strong family. More importantly, I used to think of myself first. But if you have a family or a team, then this way of thinking will lead to trouble. And I'm already in trouble. It seemed to me that I was a great guy and not at all an egoist, but my affairs spoke of something completely different. It was time to grow up and set priorities. First I had to take care of the people I loved, and only then about myself.