Columbia Entrepreneurship
was Pleased to Present an Evening with one of
Silicon Valley’s Most Respected Entrepreneurs
in Conversation About
The Hard Thing
About Hard Things;
Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
by Ben Horowitz ’88CC
- Read the full Fortune article here
- Video of the full talk 77:32 here
- Excerpt: “How do you feel and how do you deal. That’s the struggle” 4:21 here
- Excerpt: “Innovation always starts out looking like a bad idea” 3:01 here
This event took place
Tuesday, March 4th, 2014 in the
Rotunda of Low Memorial Library
Columbia University Morningside Campus
“For anyone interested in building, growing or leading a great company,
this book is an incredibly valuable resource and a funny and insightful read”
— Mark Zuckerberg, cofounder and CEO of Facebook
Filled with Ben Horowitz’s trademark humor and straight talk, The Hard Thing About Hard Things is an invaluable asset for veteran entrepreneurs, as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures. This book is unique in the way that it draws from Horowitz’s personal and often humbling experiences.
Ben is co-founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm that helps entrepreneurs build important and enduring companies. Andreessen Horowitz provides seed, venture, and growth-stage funding to the best new technology companies. The firm currently has $2.7 billion under management across three funds. Among its 150 investments are Airbnb, Box, Fab.com, Facebook, Foursquare,GitHub, Jawbone, Lytro, Magnet Systems, Pinterest, and Twitter.
Before a16z Ben was co-founder and CEO of Opsware (formerly Loudcloud, acquired by HP). His previous experience includes senior positions at America Online and Netscape Communications.
Ben is a proud alumnus of Columbia College with a B.A. in computer science and he earned an M.S. in CS from UCLA. He serves on the board of many companies, including Foursquare, Jawbone, Lytro, Magnet, Nicira, and Tidemark. Ben also pens his own blog, Ben’s Blog where he covers everything from how CEOs should hire executives to how to minimize politics in your company.
Ben is also a Columbia University Trustee where he heads the Subcommittee on Entrepreneurship.