Ben Horowitz

“I think when companies are struggling, they don't want to talk to the press. The guys who write business books aren't interested in it because nobody wants to learn what it's like to be a mess, you want to learn how to be successful. That's slanted the whole thing quite a bit.”

“The key to high-quality communication is trust, and it's hard to trust somebody that you don't know.”

“In boxing, you get hit, it's painful, then you sit on the stool when the adrenaline is gone and you feel that pain. And then you fight the next round.”

“Shareholder activism works when activists understand something about the characteristics of the business that the board doesn't.”

“As long as people are clear on what they need to do and what's going on, you're very likely to succeed. When nobody is clear, then you're guaranteed to fail.”

“A wartime C.E.O. may not delegate. They make every decision based on the next product release. They may use a lot of profanity.”

“I emphasize to C.E.O.s, you have to have a story in the minds of the employees. It's hard to memorize objectives, but it's easy to remember a story.”

“When screening engineers from other companies, its smart to value engineers from great companies more than those from mediocre companies.”

“Groupon looked like a very high valuation, but any investment in a great company at any stage is almost always a good investment.”

“It is very helpful to me, in my job, for people to know me better. A lot of that is, it's a communication job.”

“Leadership is hard to train on.”

“Every time you make the hard, correct decision you become a bit more courageous, and every time you make the easy, wrong decision you become a bit more cowardly. If you are CEO, these choices will lead to a courageous or cowardly company.”

“In my experience as CEO, I found that the most important decisions tested my courage far more than my intelligence.”

“I do think a lot of people are trying to do important things still, and I think it is really a great thing that entrepreneurship is getting easier. When I started, it was just much harder to begin a company.”

“When you found a company, you have the original vision, you make all the original decisions, you know every employee, you kind of know every aspect of the product architecture and its limitations.”

“If somebody's going on your board, and you're going to be C.E.O., it will help if that person knows how to be C.E.O., who has done it before.”

“Look - this is the terror of being a founder & CEO. It is all your fault. Every decision, every person you hire, every dumb thing you buy or do - ultimately, you're at the end.”

“I think there's a lot to be said about just enjoying your work. It can be very contrived when people say their work is for the good of mankind.”

“A good engineering interview will include some set of difficult problems to solve. It might even require that the candidate write a short program. In addition, it will test the candidate's knowledge of the tools she uses in great depth.”

“It helps to have founded and run a company if you're going to help somebody run a company who is a founder.”