Stanford CS153 Frontier Systems | Ben Horowitz from a16z on Venture Capital Systems, Network Effects

1. AMAnjney Midha0:09

   Please join me in welcoming Ben Horowitz. [clapping]

2. BHBen Horowitz0:13

   Thank you.

3. AMAnjney Midha0:17

   So how many of you heard the song that was playing right before? Does anyone know the name of that song?

4. BHBen Horowitz0:24

   Yeah.

5. AMAnjney Midha0:24

   "We Are the World." Yes, that, that's correct. "We Are the World" is a 1985 single by a supergroup of musicians that all came together to raise... It's a, it was a charity single that, um, was produced to help raise funds for the famine in Ethiopia, I believe, in 1985.

6. BHBen Horowitz0:48

   Yeah, Lionel Richie made a good documentary on it [laughs] if you're interested.

7. AMAnjney Midha0:52

   Correct.

8. BHBen Horowitz0:52

   Yeah.

9. AMAnjney Midha0:53

   The, the reason I'm bringing it up is because, um, Ben is known for many things. He's the founder of Andreessen Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz. I'm very lucky to have called him my boss for a few years.

10. BHBen Horowitz1:05

    Yeah.

11. AMAnjney Midha1:06

    Um, he's also been a founder, CEO. He's built several technology companies. He's behind one of the reasons venture capital still exists today, after many moments when it... There were times when it got threatened, including the SVB financial crisis. But the thing I've learned most about Ben is from a documentary that Ben told me to watch about a year and a half ago.

12. BHBen Horowitz1:28

    Yeah, yeah, yeah. Triple OG, yeah, yeah.

13. AMAnjney Midha1:30

    It's called The Greatest Night in Pop, and I would really recommend, uh, folks who haven't read it, uh, sorry, watched it, to go watch it. We're gonna put it in the, in the reading assignment for this class. It's on Netflix. Anyone can go watch it. But it is the documentary about the making of that song you just heard, "We Are the World." And there's somebody in the documentary that come, that, that you'll, you'll observe if you watch it, by the name of Quincy Jones. How many people have heard of Quincy Jones? Okay. About 30%, so we need to, we need to school the kids a little bit on it. Um-

14. BHBen Horowitz2:06

    Yeah, he, he, he was, um, he was the greatest.

15. AMAnjney Midha2:11

    And I didn't-

16. BHBen Horowitz2:12

    A great, great human being.

17. AMAnjney Midha2:13

    Great human being, and more importantly, a great leader.

18. BHBen Horowitz2:18

    Yeah. Well, that, that, that was a thing he could do.

19. AMAnjney Midha2:20

    Right.

20. BHBen Horowitz2:20

    He, he was the best at handling super talented, difficult-to-handle people of all times. No question.

21. AMAnjney Midha2:29

    Yep.

22. BHBen Horowitz2:29

    And you can see it in the doc.

23. AMAnjney Midha2:30

    Yep. There, there's a moment in the documentary where the camera's following Quincy around, and he's walking to the studio where the, the musicians all are, and he points to the top of the door. And he says, "Read that." And there's a sign above the ro- door that he's scrawled, uh, on a piece of paper, and he's stuck up there. This is at, like, around midnight when the, before the stu- the recording session's supposed to start. And it says, "Check your ego at the door." Or I think it says, "Leave your ego at the door."

24. BHBen Horowitz3:03

    Yeah, yeah.

25. AMAnjney Midha3:03

    "Leave your ego at the door," sorry.

26. BHBen Horowitz3:05

    Yeah, yeah.

27. AMAnjney Midha3:06

    And, uh, if I had to summarize Ben Horowitz in sort of one line, I would say he's the Quincy Jones of technology.

28. BHBen Horowitz3:14

    That's a lot. [laughs]

29. AMAnjney Midha3:16

    High bar. [laughs]

30. BHBen Horowitz3:17

    Yeah, yeah. G- that's hard to take that credit.

Episode duration: 1:06:17