The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

By: Ben Horowitz

Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly

Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley’s most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, offers essential advice on building and running a startup - practical wisdom for managing the toughest problems business school doesn’t cover, based on his popular ben’s blog.

While many people talk about how great it is to start a business, very few are honest about how difficult it is to run one. Ben Horowitz analyzes the problems that confront leaders every day, sharing the insights he’s gained developing, managing, selling, buying, investing in, and supervising technology companies. A lifelong rap fanatic, he amplifies business lessons with lyrics from his favorite songs, telling it straight about everything from firing friends to poaching competitors, cultivating and sustaining a CEO mentality to knowing the right time to cash in.

Filled with his trademark humor and straight talk, The Hard Thing About Hard Things is invaluable for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures, drawing from Horowitz’s personal and often humbling experiences.

©2014 Ben Horowitz (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishers

great narrator

book was very interesting,the narrator was highly captivating, and I learned alot!!! would definitely recommend this book to both entrepreneurs and everyday people

Great Book

Great story told in a way that gives lots of insight on running large and small organizations.

Builds up slowly and particularly, ends up spectacularly and universally.

Great lessons from one of the greatest venture capitalists, it pays up to listen through his origin story, as in the 2nd half learnings are brilliantly reframed to apply to a broader audience of managers and innovators. Almost abandoned it at first but ultimately loved it!

Very good book for c level executives

Feels like most management books are geared toward someone who is CEO or COO of Unilever but there's only so many people like that in the world. this book does a good job of conveying how to deal with real world problems in bad situations where you can't just "exit all businesses and markets where you aren't a market leader" or other inane advice.

Hard things made easy

Incredible job of presenting real world “hard things” and through storytelling make them relatable to other “hard things” which in turn makes the “hard things” seem easy.

Different from other management books

The book gave me great insight into the role of a start up CEO & what it takes to succeed.The important truth in the book is that succeeding is a very difficult journey or and as a hip hop fan,loved all the rap references

One of the best business book on startups

It has been on my to-read list for a while and I’m glad I finally got to listen to it.
It talks about how to CEO in good time and especially in bad time. A good lesson for whom works in tech companies.
I’ll buy the paperbacks so I can gift it to my tech startup friends.

Sound advice, amateur writing and narration

The narrator enunciates so aggressively and with such over-animation it made me flinch. And the excessive use of rap lyrics and other extensive references to pop culture gave the book and story a very amateurish feel. The excessive use of the pronoun "she" when referring to hypothetical CEOs also presented an odd juxtaposition with the fact that every single reference to living CEOs was to male ones (Jobs, Bezos, Schmidt, Campbell, Gates...)

However, when the actual advice of the book came out (not until the last half or maybe even quarter) it was clear, concise and to the point. Definitely got me thinking. Wish the whole book had been as such.

Entrepreneurship is Hard, period.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Sure. Anyone who is delusional about all the positive things about entrepreneurship should read, or better, listen to this book.

What did you like best about this story?

No bulls***. Facts and worries of a founder trying to grow a massive internet business.

Have you listened to any of Kevin Kenerly’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Not really. But it read it while walking to work; it made me ponder on many aspects of my own company

Good story and insights.

wish there were more insights about his deals so I could use the advice you k ow