Notes

Chapter 1:

Ben Horowitz is from a different era but it's quite clear how 'nerdy' early Silicon Valley was - these people were math geniuses prior to any entrepreneurial success.

Just before the chapter ends, he talks about the pivot NetScape was forced to make. To make a long story short, Microsoft copied their service but made it much cheaper and better. To be a thorn in Microsoft sides, Netscape did the same and made a cheaper version of Microsoft's original product. Sounds like geopolitics.

Horowitz on his relationship with Mark Andreessen: "People often ask me how we’ve managed to work effectively across three companies over 18 years. Most business relationships either become too tense to tolerate or not tense enough to be productive after a while. Either people challenge each other to the point where they don’t like each other or they become complacent about each other’s feedback and no longer benefit from the relationship. With Marc and me, even after 18 years, he upsets me almost every day by finding something wrong in my thinking, and I do the same for him. It works."

Chapter 2:

1. Raising money in the dot com crash. Nothing too surprising - what actually was surprising is how Ben Horowitz always seems to be on the winning side no matter the odds.

2. the power of individuals (Bill Campbell), breaks communist philosophy that humans are replacable. Pretty ironic considering Ben Horowitz' own ancestors were avid communists.

3. The struggle of their stock guidance - "Should we try to minimize the initial damage by taking down the number as little as possible or should we minimize the risk of another reset? If we reduced the number by a lot, the stock might fall apart. On the other hand, if we didn’t lower it enough, we might have to reset again, which would cost us all the credibility we had left. My controller, Dave Conte, raised his hand with what would be the definitive advice: “No matter what we say, we’re going to get killed. As soon as we reset guidance, we’ll have no credibility with investors, so we might as well take all the pain now, because nobody will believe any positivity in the forecast anyway. If you are going to eat shit, don’t nibble"

4. Peacetime CEO vs Wartime. Quote from the book: "I let them present all forty-five slides without my asking them a single question. When they finished I said, “Did I ask for this presentation?” Those were the first words I spoke as I made the transition from a peacetime CEO to a wartime CEO. By virtue of my position and the fact that we were a public company, nobody besides me had the complete picture. I knew we were in deep, deep trouble. Nobody besides me could get us out of the trouble, and I was through listening to advice about what we should do from people who did not understand all the pieces"

5. After selling Loudcloud to EDS, Bill Campbell gave some interesting advice: "If we hadn’t treated the people who were leaving fairly, the people who stayed would never have trusted me again. Only a CEO who had been through some awful, horrible, devastating circumstances would know to give that advice at that time"

Chapter 3:

Chapter 4:

Chapter 4 is definitely the most productive chapter so far. I'd suggest skipping the first three, if you are solely reading the book for productivity gains.

1. Startup CEO’s shouldn’t play the odds. When you are building a company, you must believe there is an answer and you cannot pay attention to your odds of finding it. You just have to find it. It matters not whether your chances are nine in ten or one in a thousand; your task is the same.

2. Life is struggle

3. Don’t put everything on your shoulders. Nobody takes losses harder than the one most responsible.

4. Play long enough and you might get lucky. This is true in any aspect of life!

5. Follow the principle of Bushido - the way of the warrior; keep death in mind at all times. If a warrior keeps death in mind at all times and lives as though this day might be his last, he will conduct himself properly in all manners. Same can be said about CEO’s and startups.

6. The positivity delusion.

Chapter 5: