$46B of hard truths: Why founders fail and why you need to run toward fear | Ben Horowitz (a16z)

(instrumental music) The worst thing that you do as a leader is you hesitate on the next decision. The thing that causes you to hesitate is both decisions are horrible. Probably one of my bigger ones on that was we went public with $2 million in trailing 12 months revenue at 18 months old. That's obviously a bad idea. But the truth of it was the alternative was going bankrupt, and that's a worse idea.

It's very difficult and painful to be a CEO, to be a founder. In spite of that, so many people want to start companies.

The psychological muscle you have to build to be a great leader is to be able to look in the abyss and go, "Okay, that way's slightly better. We're going to go that way." If everybody agrees with the decision, then you didn't add any value, 'cause they would have done that without you. So the only value you ever add is when you make a decision that most people don't like.

You are famous for writing one of the most popular pieces of literature for product managers.

What I was trying to get at in Good Product Manager, Bad Product Manager was the job is fundamentally a leadership job, and it's a tricky leadership job because nobody is actually reporting to you.

There's always this kind of sense that the PM is not the mini CEO, how dare you call yourself that. I actually think that's exactly what the PM is.

It doesn't matter if you write a good spec or you have a good interview or you do this or do that. What matters is that the product wins.

(instrumental music) Today my guest is Ben Horowitz. Ben is the Z in a16z, the world's largest venture capital firm with over $46 billion in committed capital. They're investors in OpenAI, Cursor, Anduril, Databricks, Figma, basically every generational tech company. He's also the author of two New York Times best-selling books, The Hard Thing About Hard Things and What You Do Is Who You Are. Ben is endlessly fascinating. He started a rap group when he was younger. He started his career as a product manager and wrote the now famous Good Product Manager, Bad Product Manager piece. In our wide-ranging conversation, we cover a ton of ground and Ben shares stories and insights that he's never shared anywhere else. A huge thank you to Shaka Senghor, Ali Ghodsi, and Adam Neumann for suggesting topics for this conversation. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It helps tremendously. And if you become an annual subscriber of my newsletter, you get a year free of 15 incredible products, including a year free of Lovable, Replit, Bolt, N8N, Linear, Superhuman, Descript, Whisperflow, Gamma, Perplexity, Warp, Granola, Magic Patterns, Raycast, ChatPRD, and Mobben. Check it out at lennysnewsletter.com and click Product Pass. With that, I bring you Ben Horowitz. Today's episode is brought to you by DX, the developer intelligence platform designed by leading researchers. To thrive in the AI era, organizations need to adapt quickly, but many organization leaders struggle to answer pressing questions like which tools are working, how are they being used, what's actually driving value? DX provides the data and insights that leaders need to navigate this shift. With DX, companies like Dropbox, Booking.com, Adyen, and Intercom get a deep understanding of how AI is providing value to their developers and what impact AI is having on engineering productivity. To learn more, visit DX's website at getdx.com/lenny. That's getdx.com/lenny. This episode is brought to you by Basecamp. Basecamp is the famously straightforward project management system from 37signals. Most project management systems are either inadequate or frustratingly complex, but Basecamp is refreshingly clear. It's simple to get started, easy to organize, and Basecamp's visual tools help you see exactly what everyone is working on and how all work is progressing. Keep all your files and conversations about projects directly connected to the projects themselves so that you always know where stuff is and you're not constantly switching contexts. Running a business is hard. Managing your projects should be easy. I've been a longtime fan of what 37Signals has been up to and I'm really excited to be sharing this with you. Sign up for a free account at basecamp.com/lenny. Get somewhere with Basecamp. (instrumental music) Ben, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.