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Episode Description
Ben Horowitz is a cofounder and general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm that manages $60 billion in assets under management. He is also the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The Hard Thing About Hard Things and What You Do Is Who You Are.
Prior to a16z, Ben was cofounder and CEO of Opsware (formerly Loudcloud), which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion in 2007. Earlier, he was vice president and general manager of America Online’s E-commerce Platform division, where he oversaw development of the company’s flagship Shop@AOL service. Ben also ran several product divisions at Netscape.
Ben serves on the board of Anyscale, Databricks, Mayvenn, NationBuilder, Navan, and UnitedMasters.
We covered:
- Marc and Ben’s relationship as co-founders
- Operating a venture firm like a CEO of a company
- Why scale is important and not for everyone
- The evolution of media
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Timestamps:
(0:00) Intro
(0:30) Marc and Ben’s relationship
(6:10) Structuring the firm to attract great talent
(10:28) Difference between execs and GPs
(14:51) Firm-wide guiding principles
(16:43) Scaling GPs vs small teams who concentrate
(20:11) Why scale is so important in venture
(23:45) What platform services work and don’t work
(26:58) Ben’s view on board seats
(34:56) The evolution of media
(44:44) Laws of physics for fund sizes
(48:28) Winning is more impactful than picking
(52:15) Defending why venture doesn’t scale
(55:00) Hiring ex founders and CEOs
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