Quote

Early in my career as an engineer, I’d learned that all decisions were objective until the first line of code was written. After that, all decisions were emotional.

Ben Horowitz

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ben Horowitz
Age: 58
Born: 1966
Born: June 13
Businessman
Businessperson
Engineer
London
England
Benjamin Abraham Horowitz
Decision
Decisions
Written
Early
Firsts
Career
First
Line
Engineer
Careers
Engineers
Emotional
Objective
Learned
Objectives
Lines
Code

More quotes by Ben Horowitz

Image
The right answer on raises is you have to be formal. You have to be formal to save your own culture.
Ben Horowitz
Image
Nothing motivates a great employee more than a mission that's so important that it supersedes everyone's personal ambition.
Ben Horowitz
Image
There are no shortcuts to knowledge, especially knowledge gained from personal experience. Following conventional wisdom and relying on shortcuts can be worse than knowing nothing at all.
Ben Horowitz
Image
Sometimes an organization doesn’t need a solution it just needs clarity.
Ben Horowitz
Image
Hire sales people who are really smart problem solvers, but lack courage, hunger and competitiveness, and your company will go out of business.
Ben Horowitz
Image
The right thing to do is to thank them for their work, let people know that they're moving on, and ... you don't really have to explain all their personal details. It's more important to leave them with their dignity... and let them go on to live another day. Remember, what you say at that meeting, that's their reputation.
Ben Horowitz
Image
A key thing in being a leader is you’ve got to pause yourself.
Ben Horowitz
Image
When I was CEO, and I'd listen to music, a lot of people listen to music and you get inspiration from it. And a lot of things in hip hop are very instructive for being in business. Particularly, hip hop is a lot about business, and so it was very useful for me in any job.
Ben Horowitz
Image
In all the difficult decisions that I made through the course of running Loudcloud and Opsware, I never once felt brave. In fact, I often felt scared to death. I never lost those feelings, but after much practice, I learned to ignore them. That learning process might also be called the courage development process.
Ben Horowitz
Image
I was an executive running a pretty substantial group before becoming CEO, and I had no idea what it was like. When something goes wrong, people say, 'It's all your fault.' Your reaction is, 'It's not my fault.' But what do you mean? I was the founder, I hired everybody in the company, I was managing it.
Ben Horowitz
Image
There is no silver bullet. There are always options and the options have consequences.
Ben Horowitz
Image
Your employees know each other better than they know you.
Ben Horowitz
Image
Don't punk out and don't quit.
Ben Horowitz
Image
Breakthrough ideas usually come from guys who look like they're hallucinating
Ben Horowitz
Image
Relationships built from a business do better than the reverse.
Ben Horowitz
Image
To succeed at selling a losing product, you must develop seriously superior sales techniques. In addition, you have to be massively competitive and incredibly hungry to survive in that environment.
Ben Horowitz
Image
A CEO needs great intelligence and great courage. And I always found my courage was tested more.
Ben Horowitz
Image
You know what the difference between a vision and a hallucination is? They call it a vision when other people can see it.
Ben Horowitz
Image
Leadership is hard to train on.
Ben Horowitz
Image
For example, the vast majority of security break-ins occur as a result of problems with known fixes. With an automated system, you can keep up to date.
Ben Horowitz