The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers―Straight Talk on the Challenges of Entrepreneurship

Questions About The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers―Straight Talk on the Challenges of Entrepreneurship

by Ben Horowitz (Goodreads Author)

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Answered Questions (3)

What's the most useful and unique insight in this book?
Bryan Rahija Here are a few things from my notes:

It's important to get 3 key processes in place:
-1 on 1s: possibly the single best way to make your organization …moreHere are a few things from my notes:

It's important to get 3 key processes in place:
-1 on 1s: possibly the single best way to make your organization a Good Place to Work, encourage employees to deliver important bad news, and clear obstacles to their work, these should occur very regularly
-Promotions: clarity on this front discourages political maneuvering
-Feedback: it's just really important for raising the bar

2 really good questions to ask:
-What would I do if my company went bankrupt? (This led Horowitz to conclude that he needed to spin off 80% of LoudCloud and bet the whole business on a product called Opsware, ultimately leading to a $1.6 billion acquisition by HP)
-What are we NOT doing? (Horowitz had this as an agenda item at staff meetings; once it helped surface a critical unmet need in the market)

An interesting way to structure account management for key accounts:
-Have one person in charge of delivering every last thing that the client asks for
-Have a second person in charge of worming their way in the organization and identifying hidden value -- i.e., things you could build and sell them

An insight Horowitz attributes to Andy Grove:
-Training is one of the single "highest leverage" activities that a manager do (http://www.bhorowitz.com/why_startups...)(less)
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What's the most useful and unique insight in this book?
Ram G Athreya 1 - As a leader be clear on what you want
2 - Effectively get it done from other people

The rest of the book is simply about how to get the above two po…more1 - As a leader be clear on what you want
2 - Effectively get it done from other people

The rest of the book is simply about how to get the above two points done. Finally, you need immense courage to pull it off.(less)
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What's the most useful and unique insight in this book?
Ami Vider One of the good books about tech startups... there are not many with Horowitz's experience and ability to write for early entrepreneurs with candor an…moreOne of the good books about tech startups... there are not many with Horowitz's experience and ability to write for early entrepreneurs with candor and complete truth. He does it well and moves along but slowly. We have a term in tech "TL;DR" (Too Long; Don't Read), it's usually about blog articles that go over the 850-word standard. Horowitz definitely writes more than 850-word chapters. (less)
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Unanswered Questions (1)

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