Ben Horowitz ran Loudcloud/Opsware through everything that can go wrong at a company: the dot-com bubble bursting mid-IPO, cash weeks from running out, three mass layoffs, selling the original business to survive, and finally the $1.6 billion sale to HP.
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Ben Horowitz — co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz — wrote the startup book that skips the pretty part: what you do when you must fire a friend, when the company is weeks from running out of cash, when you demote a loyal executive. Based on his years leading Loudcloud/Opsware to a $1.6B sale after living on the edge.
Ben Horowitz ran Loudcloud/Opsware through everything that can go wrong at a company: the dot-com bubble bursting mid-IPO, cash weeks from running out, three mass layoffs, selling the original business to survive, and finally the $1.6 billion sale to HP. This book exists because, while all that was happening, no management book told him what to do — they all explained how to run companies that work. Horowitz wrote the missing one: what you do when you must fire a loyal friend, how you communicate a mass layoff, how you manage your own psychology when failure seems imminent («the struggle»), why there are peacetime and wartime CEOs, and when lying to yourself is the only unforgivable sin. The style — direct, with rap lyrics opening each chapter and zero self-pity — sets it apart from the whole genre. As founding partner of Andreessen Horowitz, his advice comes validated by hundreds of later startups. It is not a book for starting up; it is the book for when you already have and things get ugly.
For startup founders and executives in the hard phase — which is every startup, at some point; less useful as an introduction to entrepreneurship.
FactHorowitz sold Opsware to HP for $1.6 billion in 2007 and co-founded Andreessen Horowitz in 2009; the Spanish edition was published by Libros de Cabecera in 2015.
