Ben Horowitz

Marc and Ben explore the intersection of AI and crypto, highlighting the rise of Truth Terminal, an autonomous chatbot developed by AI researcher Andy Ayrey. With its own X account, Truth Terminal generates original and often hilarious content independently. Marc’s interaction with the bot recently took a surprising turn when he decided to grant it...

The time has come to stand up for Little Tech. Bad government policies are now the #1 threat to Little Tech. We believe American technology supremacy, and the critical role that Little Tech startups play in ensuring that supremacy, is a first class political issue on par with any other.

We have just raised $7.2B for American Dynamism ($600M), Apps ($1B), Games ($600M), Infrastructure ($1.25B), and Growth ($3.75B). This marks an important milestone for us.

Software Is Eating the World

If a candidate supports an optimistic technology-enabled future, we are for them. If they want to choke off important technologies, we are against them

Ben Horowitz discusses the leadership styles of Intel’s Andy Grove and Apple’s Bill Campbell, how Okta won its market with culture, and how to look for and hire the talent you don’t have in an interview with David Weiden, founding partner at Khosla Ventures, at the Khosla Ventures CEO Summit.

What founders and leaders can learn from the Haitian revolution led by Toussaint L’Ouverture in 1791.

Do we need a new pay system for the way startup employees are compensated? While many people agree that the current 90-day exercise practice — an outdated relic of when companies used to go public/get liquidity in a much shorter timeframe — is far from ideal, neither are some of the other solutions proposed so far....

In this episode of the a16z Podcast sharing more founder stories, Ben Horowitz interviews a16z partner Lars Dalgaard about SuccessFactors, one of the earlier software-as-a-service companies. (It was founded on 2001, IPO’d in 2008, and was acquired by SAP in 2012). SuccessFactors focused on software for “human capital management” in the enterprise. But what are the success...

One of the ways to damage a fast-growing startup is to not have an HR person. But when is the right time to bring someone on? What qualities should you look for? How can you preserve the company culture and energy that got you where you are — while still putting in place the processes...

A lot of people have been asking me what my upcoming book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, will be like. Here’s a piece that I wrote for the book that did not make the cut. I still think it’s a pretty good story and gives you a flavor. I just tell the truth so...

Software Is Eating the World

Yet our best trained, best educated, best equipped, best prepared troops refuse to fight. As a matter of fact, it’s safe to say that they would rather switch than fight. —Public Enemy (sampled from Thomas Todd), Fight the Power Early in my tenure as product manager for the web servers at Netscape, we faced a...

In peacetime, it’s all about growth. In wartime, it’s just about surviving.

Org design, specialization, and process can combat the toughest challenges—communication, common knowledge, and decision making—that come with scale.

Unemployment at a record high People coming, people going, people born to die Don’t ask me, because I don’t know why But it’s like that, and that’s the way it is –Run DMC, It’s Like That My single biggest personal improvement as CEO occurred on the day when I stopped being too positive. As a...

“Teachers teach and do the world good kings just rule and most are never understood” – KRS 1, My Philosophy When I first became a manager, I had mixed feelings about training. Logically, training for hi-tech companies made sense, but my personal experience with training programs at the companies where I had worked was underwhelming....

“You’re just a rent-a-rapper, your rhymes are minute-maid I’ll be here when it fade to watch you flip like a renegade” —Rakim, Follow the Leader When my partner Marc wrote his post describing our firm, the most controversial component of our investment strategy was our preference for founding CEOs. The conventional wisdom says a startup...

If you slipping in Hollywood and you get your chain snatched I know some n*&%!@ that owe some n*&%!@ I’ll get your chain back —The Game, Cali Sunshine Who do you need to meet? I’m sure that we know them —Ron Conway Almost everybody knows that Ron Conway has invested in a huge percentage of...