The trouble with innovation is that truly innovative ideas often look like bad ideas at the time. — Ben Horowitz Copy Share Image
Big companies have trouble with innovation. Innovation is about bad ideas, or ideas that look like bad ideas. That's the fundamental thing. — Ben Horowitz Copy Share Image
“Once Microsoft lost its grip on developers, it became only a matter of time before it lost its monopoly on operating systems.” — Ben Horowitz Copy Share Image
One of the great things about building a tech company is the amazing people that you can hire. — Ben Horowitz Copy Share Image
With communication technology in general, there's a kind of certain critical mass of people. Once you get to 15% of the world's… — Ben Horowitz Copy Share Image
Over the last ten years, technological advances have dramatically lowered the financial bar for starting a new company, but the courage bar… — Ben Horowitz Copy Share Image
“This is not checkers; this is motherfuckin’ chess. Technology businesses tend to be extremely complex. The underlying technology moves, the competition moves,… — Ben Horowitz Copy Share Image
“Media companies focused on things like creating great stories whereas technology companies focused on creating a better way of doing things. We… — Ben Horowitz Copy Share Image
In order to build a great technology company, you have to hire lots of incredibly smart people. It's a total waste to… — Ben Horowitz Copy Share Image
The primary thing that any technology startup must do is build a product that's at least 10 times better at doing something… — Ben Horowitz Copy Share Image
“The overwhelming favorites to dominate the race to become the so-called Information Superhighway were competing proprietary technologies from industry powerhouses such as Oracle… — Ben Horowitz Copy Share Image
There is no silver bullet. There are always options and the options have consequences. — Ben Horowitz Copy Share
Groupon looked like a very high valuation, but any investment in a great company at any stage is almost always a good investment. — Ben Horowitz Copy Share
By far the most difficult skill I learned as a C.E.O. was the ability to manage my own psychology. Organizational design, process design, metrics,… — Ben Horowitz Copy Share
“The hard thing is when those “great people” develop a sense of entitlement and start demanding unreasonable things. The hard thing isn’t setting up… — Ben Horowitz Copy Share
“As painful as it might be, I knew that we had to get into the broader market in order to understand it well enough… — Ben Horowitz Copy Share
“On my grandfather’s tombstone, you will find his favorite Marx quote: “Life is struggle.” I believe that within that quote lies the most important… — Ben Horowitz Copy Share
“Bill Campbell: "It's not about the money." Ben Horowitz: "What's it about, Bill?" Bill: "It's about the FUCKING money.” — Ben Horowitz Copy Share
When the value of the company clearly has fallen below what its assets are worth, having a shareholder who says, 'Let's get a better… — Ben Horowitz Copy Share
One person is never as stupid as a group of people. That's why they have lynch mobs, not lynch individuals. — Ben Horowitz Copy Share
As companies move to web-based computing they get a lot more servers, which are difficult to manage and control. All kinds of problems can… — Ben Horowitz Copy Share
Breakthrough ideas usually come from guys who look like they're hallucinating — Ben Horowitz Copy Share
When screening engineers from other companies, its smart to value engineers from great companies more than those from mediocre companies. — Ben Horowitz Copy Share
“No matter who you are, you need two kinds of friends in your life. The first kind is one you can call when something… — Ben Horowitz Copy Share
“The difference between being mediocre and magical is often the difference between letting people take creative risk and holding them too tightly accountable. Accountability… — Ben Horowitz Copy Share
