The Struggle

Key ideas

Horowitz describes the stretch when a founder's plan collapses into self-doubt, and shares what helped him while insisting there is no answer to it.

1. 1

   Know what the struggle is

   Horowitz describes a period when the plan has fallen apart, staff are losing faith, cash is short and the founder doubts they should be CEO at all. He says it is not failure itself but it causes failure, and notes that even if Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg went through it, you may not make it.

2. 2

   Share every burden you can

   Horowitz argues founders wrongly assume bad news will hit employees harder than it hits them; he says the person most responsible takes it hardest. When Opsware was losing too many competitive deals, he told the whole company at an all-hands, and he says the team responded by building a product that won.

3. 3

   Assume there is always a move

   Horowitz writes that technology businesses keep shifting, so options keep appearing even when none seem left. His example is his own decision to go public in 2001 with little revenue and only weeks of cash.

4. 4

   Look at the road, not the wall

   Using race-car training as his analogy, Horowitz says that fixating on how you might fail leads you to it. He adds that lasting long enough can help, since tomorrow in technology may bring an answer that looks impossible today.

5. 5

   Don't grade yourself while in it

   Horowitz concedes the predicament is probably your fault, since you hired the people and made the decisions. But he points out that every CEO makes thousands of mistakes, and says giving yourself a failing grade does not help.

In Ben’s words

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