Book 108 of 141

    From the library

    The Hard Thing About Hard Things

    Ben Horowitz, 2014

    In one paragraph

    Horowitz offers essential advice on building and running a startup, drawing from his experience as both a founder and venture capitalist.

    Also tagged

    Entrepreneurship
    Leadership
    Management

    Where this sits in the operating system

    Single-Point Focus

    Focus & Essentialism

    Right People First

    People & Relationships

    Recovery Protocols

    Compound Leverage

    Key insights

    There is no recipe for the hard things. Horowitz's value is describing decisions where every option is bad.

    Take care of people, products and profits, in that order, and be honest with the team when the news is terrible.

    The direct rebuttal to Good to Great: in a crisis, first who is a luxury you do not have.

    Recognise it early

    The failure and the correction sit side by side deliberately. Read the left column asking whether any of it is already true of you.

    What goes wrong

    Looking for silver bullets instead of doing hard work

    There are no silver bullets, only lead bulletsfocus on execution

    Protecting team from difficult realities

    The right thing to do is tell your employees the truth

    Hiring to avoid weaknesses rather than leverage strengths

    Hire for strength rather than lack of weakness

    Trying to please everyone as leader

    Everybody thinks you are doing it wrongfocus on right decisions

    Waiting for perfect information before deciding

    The right answer is that there is no right answeract with conviction

    The same idea, argued differently

    Eckhart Tolle

    Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen

    The full breakdown

    Before you close this

    Naming the specific moment you will act roughly doubles the odds you do.

    Reference

    Author
    Ben Horowitz
    Published
    2014
    Category
    Business
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