The Hard Thing About Hard Things

The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, is the antidote to the sanitised success stories of most business books. Horowitz writes frankly about the moments of despair, near-bankruptcy, betrayal, and impossible decisions that define the experience of building a company. He introduces the concept of ‘the struggle’, the periods when everything is falling apart and no one has the answers, and shares hard-won insights on everything from laying off employees and managing rockstar performers, to building a company culture under pressure and knowing when to sell. Drawing on hip-hop lyrics, personal failures, and real war stories from Silicon Valley, this is the most honest book about what building a tech company actually feels like.