The Hard Things About Hard Things

The Hard Things About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz is a book for CEOs. Horowitz explains in a very easy to read and an entertaining style his learnings as a CEO. For me it was especially helpful to better understand the role of a CEO and exciting the get a look into to the decision strategies of a battle- proven startup founder.

Especially useful for non-CEOs like me and and from a leadership perspective are his remarks on the importance of the CEO being the person in an organization that is actually in the position to make tough decisions and that finding decisions in a commitee does not yield the best decision in the interest of the company. In combination with his chapter on the Peacetime/Wartime CEO this helps to understand the role of a CEO: companies cant function properly without them and they are in a constant state of struggle, often dilemma. The hard thing is that there is no simple answer to this and they deservere respect and forgiveness for their sometimes hard to understand decisions. But only the unique position of a CEO who has all knowledge about a business enables thme to weigh that information and find the best decision-or just the least bad one.

Where Horowitz stands out for me is the fact that he goes great length into explaining the importance of not letting politics destroy the connection and trust employees have in their company. He values the individual learning and development over everything else because in the end it will be the strength of the team that carries a startup through tough times.

The book is a short read and I highly recommend it to (future) entrepreneurs and team leads.