The Hard Thing about Hard Things

Ben Horowitz

TL;DR

I really wanted to hate this book

I’m not a fan of Ben Horowitz, his over-use of rap lyrics, his view on “war-time CEOs”, nor of his father.

However …

This is a book that has a lot of insight on how to build a VC-backed company. What appears to be the most important thing is “belief in the mission.” It’s the only way that Horowitz got his staff to band together and work crazy hours to save his companies (Netscape, Loudcloud / OpsWare). Along the way he breaks out a number of useful insights and techniques for management.