The Hard Thing About Hard Things
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Book by Ben Horowitz
Chapter 1
Notes
- 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.
- 32 - different to ask '“What’s the worst thing that could happen?” The answer always came back the same: “We’ll go bankrupt,' - VS - “What would I do if we went bankrupt?”
- 30 If you are going to eat shit, don’t nibble.
- 29 - I turned to Scott Kupor, my director offinance, and said, “We did it!” He replied, “Yeah, but we’re still fucked.”
- 25 - People offer many complex reasons for why Bill rates so highly. In myexperience it’s pretty simple. No matter who you are, you need two kinds of
friends in your life. The first kind is one you can call when something goodhappens, and you need someone who will be excited for you. Not a fakeexcitement veiling envy, but a real excitement. You need someone who willactually be more excited for you than he would be if it had happened to him. Thesecond kind of friend is somebody you can call when things go horribly wrong—when your life is on the line and you only have one phone call. Who is it going to be? Bill Campbell is both of those friends.
- 21 - Andy said to me, “Ben, think about how you might run the business if capital were free.”
- 10 - Following conventional wisdom is worse than knowing nothing at all.
- 11 -Former secretary of state Colin Powell says that leadership is the ability to get someone to follow you even if only out of curiosity