Ben Horowitz
Co-Founder and General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz · 1 appearance on the record.
computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →
investorfounderexecutiveauthor@bhorowitz ↗LinkedIn ↗a16z.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
Horowitz co-founded and served as CEO of Opsware, leading it to a $1.6 billion acquisition by Hewlett-Packard in 2007. In 2009, he co-founded the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz alongside Marc Andreessen and authored bestselling business books.
12statements → 5claims → 4claims resolved → 75%fully supported → 3.83/5average certainty → 2.5/5average debate potential → 4.5/5argument clarity · the sources → 187said about them ↓
3 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not checkable as stated how the 5 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
5 assertions · 7 insights · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 5 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 4 are resolved, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.
The record, in short
What the tape says about how Ben argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.
Their most notable supported claim
Horowitz: Andreessen Horowitz faced criticism for marketing VC before competitors copied it
“It was basically known as a given that you did not market Venture capital firms. Nobody had ever marketed their venture capital firm in any kind of context, and it's definitely the decision we got the most criticism for before everybody copied it”
Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →
4.5 / 5
directness 4.8 · coherence 4.9 ·
precision 4.3 · compression 3.9
answered every one of 24 assessed questions directly
This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →
How they sound: speaking style how? →
265 words/min while actually speaking · 9.1 um and uh per 1k words
Measured by listening to the audio itself: 4,628 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →
How the interview went all their pushback → series average →
Across 1 rated episode:
host pushback ▾ 1/10
pushed back at the host 2/10
setup questions received 85%
host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 6:03“How did seeing the macro volatility impact your investing mentality today, do you think?” ▶ 15:06“How does one know when's the right time to adapt or bring in outside leadership to maybe alter that culture?” ▶ 26:26“What's the most counterintuitive decision you've made with Andreessen, do you think?”
Everything Ben Horowitz said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Professional CEOs struggle to innovate more than founders struggle to manage
“And we thought there was a reason for that because it was much harder for a professional CEO to learn to be an innovator than for an innovator to learn to be a CEO.”
Steve Ballmer's executive presence won Microsoft the early cloud battle against Google
“But, you know, in the early days of that battle, when they had way better product, Google had a way better product, Balmer would, and Balmer's still CEO at the time, would show up in companies and say, I'm here. Is Larry Page going to come visit? And of course…”
Horowitz: Consensus hiring policies for executive roles are destructive
“A lot of times you'll see rules in early stage companies where, okay, everybody's got to vote thumbs up in order for us to hire this person, or everybody's got to score them eight out of 10 or better or whatever. But with an executive, that kind of policy can …”
Horowitz: Andreessen Horowitz faced criticism for marketing VC before competitors copied it
“It was basically known as a given that you did not market Venture capital firms. Nobody had ever marketed their venture capital firm in any kind of context, and it's definitely the decision we got the most criticism for before everybody copied it”
Horowitz: Macroeconomics is a complex system that is fundamentally unanalyzable
“There's nothing more unpredictable than macroeconomics. Like, it is a very, very complex Complex system. You know, it's path dependent. It's not analyzable. You know, everybody's always making predictions, and they're always wrong until they're right, like a b…”
Okta suffered severe employee attrition early on due to improper sales strategy
“Okta went through a very difficult time early on and they had like, you know, very deep attrition. And so Todd asked me to go talk to the company about why like why people should stay in the company. Like it was that bad.”
Horowitz: Board members must control the board to build deep CEO trust
“Well, look, I think in order to accomplish that, you really have to be the board member that controls the board. So if you're like a board member and you're the third strongest person on the board and you have a trust relationship with the CEO, that's not goin…”
Andreessen Horowitz fines team members $10 per minute for tardiness to meetings
“We find people basically, if you're on time, but if you're late, it's 10 dollars a minute for a meeting with an entrepreneur.”
Reed Hastings barred DVD executives from staff meetings during Netflix's streaming pivot
“Kind of the example that I use, the parallel example, is Reed Hastings when he switched the business from CDs to streaming, which, or DVDs to streaming, sorry. You know, he had no streaming revenue, and, you know, the DVD business was, not only was the entire …”
Horowitz: Destructive board behavior stems from members trying to sound smart
“I think the mistake board members make is they say things because they want to, like, sound smart and impress the other board members as opposed to saying things because they know what the reaction might be, and how it might affect how the company operates goi…”
Horowitz: Counterintuitive rules set culture by forcing employees to ask why
“Probably the key thing on a shocking rule is that it has to surprise people. People have to ask themselves, why in the world do we have that rule? That seems crazy. And one of my favorite rules like that, of course, is Tom Coughlin's, if you're on time, you're…”
The other half of the tape: Ben Horowitz's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 174 times in 75 episodes on 20VC. 13 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 44Alex Bouaziz 14David George 12Marc Andreessen 11Anish Acharya 9Frederic Kerrest 7Martin Casado 6Frank Chen 5
Statements about Ben Horowitz, by other people (13)
Bouaziz believes high-growth tech companies should hire engineers as CMOs
“But in his mind, most chief marketing officers are not good. The truth is I actually agree with him. And for a while I was looking for a CMO with this experience, that experience, and what I've realized is, like, the best CMOs I've encountered over the last fe…”
Blank: Ben Horowitz's wartime CEO analogy is flawed and inappropriate
“Business people who use that analogy. I'm not sure too many of them have been in the fight. If you lose in a wartime, it's measured and killed in action. And if you lose in business, it's maybe you lose your corner office. So I'm not sure that's the right anal…”
Acharya: Most Business Books Are Full of Shit
“Hard Things was the first honest business book. Okay, and I always say about business books, like the business model of business books is selling business books. It's not making you better. Most business books are full of shit, and Hard Things is the first one…”
Ben Horowitz called Databricks his highest-upside portfolio company in 2015
“So I was like looking at Mongo or Square or some of those companies and he was like, yeah, this company called Databricks, it's way earlier stage than anything you're looking at, but it's got the most upside of any company in my whole portfolio.”
Andreessen wants to be remembered as an entrepreneur, not an investor
“Entrepreneur. I, and you know, Ben and I are lucky in that we've been able to, you know, A-sixteen Z itself has been an entrepreneurial project. And so yeah, I would, if I could choose, that would definitely be the one.”
Horowitz refused to distribute 'Extreme Ownership' to a16z founders
“I recommended to Ben when that book came out, I fell in love with it and I recommended to Ben. I said, we need to send this to all of our founders and like teach this. And he's like, Mark, you're out of your mind. Like our founders already have the problem whe…”
Todd McKinnon names Ben Horowitz as his top board member
“Yeah, it's a lot of good ones, but I think Ben Horowitz is the first. He's been there from the very early days, so we have a special, special connection, and also, he's also, we're compatible, like, in the way we think about things. Pretty logical thinkers. Ou…”
Abuzeid: Managing personal psychology is a startup CEO's primary responsibility
“Ben Horowitz in his book, Hard Things About Hard Things, one of the first things he says is the number one job of the CEO is to manage your own psychology. And I've, now that I've been like in the trenches here, like it's so true.”
Okta had just $3M ARR when Sequoia invested in its Series C
“So when we did invest in Okta, it was the series C and Ben Horowitz and Anil Bushri were already on the board. So we were a little bit late to the party, but even at the series C, they had three million of ARR versus consensus for this year says 500 plus.”
Casado: Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz saved Nicira during 2008 recession
“Mark and Ben saved the company. We ended up selling that about four years later to VMware.”
Lawee: Ben Horowitz's granular operational knowledge makes a real difference for CEOs
“I was always struck with how much detail he has around the functionings of a business. Like he could explain in detail how the planning group of The finance team versus the accounting group thinks, and the challenges of having someone who's doing one role doin…”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
2026 34 mentions in 9 episodes 4 per episode
- a16z, Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead? Do Margins Still Matter? Why We Are Not in an AI Bubble? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Marc Andreessen: Will a16z Go Public & Why Labour Displacement with AI is Wrong? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Jensen's Open-Weights Letter | Google Cloud Grows 82% But The Market Tanks
- The Early Days of Anthropic & How 21 of 22 VCs Rejected It | The Four Bottlenecks in AI | Anj Midha · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Harvey CEO Winston Weinberg: How to Make Mega Deals | Lessons from Rabois, Halligan & Grady · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Anthropic’s $10B Raise | a16z’s $15B Fund: Is the Middle Dead in VC? | How OpenAI Could Go to Zero? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Jake Paul: Traditional VC is Toast & Attention is More Valuable than Cash · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Anthropic Inference Costs Skyrocket |TikTok Deal Closes |The IPO Market:Wealthfront & EquipmentShare · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 1 more episode that year, every mention in 2026 →
2025 32 mentions in 9 episodes 4 per episode
- a16z's David George on the Most Controversial Bet at a16z & Do Margins and Revenue Matter in AI? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
- Benchmark's GP, Everett Randle on Why Mega Funds Will Not Produce Good Returns · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- OpenAI Restructuring: Who Wins and Who Loses & Mercor Raises $350M at a $10BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Cerebras CEO, Andrew Feldman on Why Raise $1BN and Delay the IPO & Why NVIDIA’s Worried About Growth · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- a16z GP, Martin Casado: Anthropic vs OpenAI & Why Open Source is a National Security Risk with China · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Plural Partner, Taavet Hinrikus: Why Founders Will Realise Multi-Stage Funds Damage Seed Rounds · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 1 more episode that year, every mention in 2025 →
2024 9 mentions in 5 episodes 2 per episode
- Chris Dixon: Who Will Win the Next Generation of Venture? | E1132 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Zachary Bookman: Why Valuations and Fundraising are BS | E1235 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Pat Grady: Sequoia Partner on Investing Lessons from Doug Leone, Roelof Botha and Alfred Lin | E1174 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Tom Hulme: Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 275x on Robinhood & Making Billions on Uber |E1150 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Roger Ehrenberg: Why VC Returns Will Get Worse & Why LP Incentive Structures are so Broken | E1117 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2024, scene by scene →
2023 4 mentions in 1 episode
2022 24 mentions in 11 episodes 2 per episode
- a16z GP Martin Casado: How I Went from Engineer to VC; Lessons from Chris Dixon | 20VC #956 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Marty Cagan: Product Lessons from Steve Jobs and Elon Musk; Why do we idolize engineers? | 20VC #957 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Miki Kuusi: How I Scaled Wolt to $8B; Why I Sold to DoorDash | 20VC #953 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Dropbox CEO Drew Houston: How to Pick a Co-Founder; Steve Jobs' Attempt to Buy Dropbox | 20VC #938 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Cathie Wood: Elon & Twitter; Why Facebook is a Value Stock Now; ARK's Performance | 20VC #949 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Emil Michael: How I Negotiated the $4B Uber-China Deal, Why DoorDash Caught Up to Uber | 20VC #941 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Logan Bartlett: WTF is Happening at Growth Stage Investing? | 20VC #920 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Shreyas Doshi: The 6 Product Metrics You Need To Know; The 3 Types of Product Leader | E913 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 3 more episodes that year, every mention in 2022 →
2021 13 mentions in 4 episodes 3 per episode
- 20VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management
- 20VC: a16z's David George on Leading a16z's Growth Fund Today, The Biggest Misconceptions of Growth Investing, How a16z Think Through Portfolio Construction, Investment Decision-Making and Scenario Planning & How The Entrance of New Players Has Changed Th
- 20VC: Databricks CEO, Ali Ghodsi on The 3 Phases of Startup Growth, How to Evaluate Risk and Downside Scenario Planning & Who, What and When To Hire When Scaling Your Go-To-Market
- 20VC: Supercell Founder Ilkka Paananen on What it Means To Be "The Least Powerful CEO", His Relationship To Wealth and Risk & How To Create Environments of Safety Where Your Team Can Be Their Best and Most Ambitious Selves
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
2020 10 mentions in 9 episodes 1 per episode
- 20VC: Why Most Founders Do Not Structure Their Fundraise Correctly, The Pros Of Having An MBA As A Startup Founder & How To Manage The Psychology Of Being CEO and Overcome Self Doubt with Iman Abuzeid, Founder & CEO @ Incredible Health
- 20VC: Slack Founder Stewart Butterfield on Leadership Styles, Decision-Making, The 3 Levels of Wealth, IPOs vs Direct Listings & Why Effective Entrepreneurship is Like Parkour
- 20VC: Steve Blank on Why The Startup Ecosystem is Partially A Ponzi Scheme, 3 Things That Determine Startup Survival in a COVID World & Facebook: Platform vs Publisher and Where Does Their Responsibility Lie?
- 20VC: Craft Ventures' David Sacks on How To Assess Founder Psychology, How To Accurately Evaluate CAC, Burn and Churn & What Makes The Very Best Startup Boards
- 20VC: TripActions CEO Ariel Cohen on The Future of Business and Personal Travel & Layoffs; How To Do Them The Right Way & Maintain Company Culture and Morale
- 20VC: Airtable's Howie Liu on Potential Consolidation In The Collaboration Tools Market, The Transition From Peacetime To Wartime CEO & How To Make The Move To Remote Work Successful; The Process Beyond The Tools
- 20VC: Superhuman's Rahul Vohra on How 1-1 Customer Onboarding Can Scale Efficiently to $100M ARR, Why Gamification Does Not Work But Game Design Does & What Game Design Means For The Next Generation Of Product Managers
- 20VC: The Framework to Scale A Team From 20 to 190 in 24 Months, How To Structure The Perfect Investor Updates & How To Create A Culture of Distributed Ownership with Radical Transparency with Jean-Charles Samulian, Co-Founder & CEO @ Alan
- 1 more episode that year, every mention in 2020 →
2019 17 mentions in 4 episodes 4 per episode
- 20VC: Okta Founder Frederic Kerrest on Why You Want To Be A Monopolist In A Small Market, The Biggest Challenges in Scaling Okta To IPO and Being a16z's First Ever Fund Check
- 20VC: a16z Partner Frank Chen on The Future of Car Ownership, Whether The High Employee Attrition Rate in The Valley Is A Feature or A Bug & His Biggest Lessons From Netscape, Loudcloud & Opsware
- 20VC: a16z's Scott Kupor on The Biggest Learnings From Scaling a16z from $300m to $7Bn AUM, The Biggest Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make When Pitching VCs & Why VC Is Simply A Customer Service Business
- 20VC: Sequoia's Pat Grady on What Sequoia Is Focused On Today, How Sequoia Think About Investment Decision-Making Processes & Why It Is Important To Trade A Few Points of Efficiency for Culture When It Comes To Attribution
- every mention in 2019, scene by scene →
2018 6 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Elad Gil's High Growth Handbook on The Commonalities of The Truly Great CEOs, How To Hire The Very Best Execs, Why Cash is A Defensible Moat Today & The Pros and Cons of M&A and IPOs
- 20VC: Monzo's Tom Blomfield on The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, The Secret To Building a 1.2m Community with No Advertising & How To Use Boards As A Tool To Instil Operational Excellence
- 20VC: Ryan Caldbeck on Why The Business Model of VC is Broken, Who is To Blame, How The Best Funds Will Use Data Intelligently Moving Forward & Whether We Are In A Consumer Bubble Or Not?
- 20VC: Why Entrepreneurs Should Let Everyone Rip Apart Their Business Idea, How To Construct Frameworks for Success & Why You Should Not Always Test Your MVP with Afton Vechery, Founder & CEO @ Modern Fertility
- every mention in 2018, scene by scene →
2017 7 mentions in 5 episodes 1 per episode
- 20VC: What Larry Paige, Mary Meeker and Ben Horowitz All Have In Common, Why You Have To Build A Movement Not A Brand & Why This Really Is A Great Time To Be An Entrepreneur with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds
- 20VC: Kevin Rose on Putting The Entire Fund Into Uber, The Future For Mobile & Whether Angels Should Have Super Pro-Rata Rights?
- 20VC: What Does It Take To Raise A Venture Fund Today, An Analysis of The Explosion of Seed Financing & Why IRR No Longer Takes Centre Stage with Samir Kaji, Senior Managing Director @ First Republic Bank
- 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC"
- 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium
- every mention in 2017, scene by scene →
2016 11 mentions in 9 episodes 1 per episode
- 20VC: Why People Should Never Be Surprised If Fired, Subscription E-Commerce Is Hot & People Never Give True and Direct Feedback with Amir Elaguizy, Co-Founder @ Cratejoy
- 20VC: Why Adaptability Is Key To Fundraising, Why Supply Is Always The First Priority In Marketplaces & Why Sometimes You Have To Hire Fast & Fire Fast with Nav Athwal, Founder & CEO @ RealtyShares
- 20VC: What Makes A Great marketplace Founder, The Key Metrics Marketplace Success Is Centred On & 3 Ways To Prove To Investors You Are A Domain Expert with Karthik Sridharan, Founder & CEO @ Kinnek
- 20VC: Index's Ilya Fushman on The Key Lessons From Scaling Dropbox To 400m Users, Is Excessive Amounts Of Capital Driving Valuations Too High In The Valley & Why Venture Is Like Being On A Swim Team Not A Soccer Team
- 20VC: Maximising Engagement and Retention on Mobile & Why There Should Always Be Availability To A Free Product with Sean Brecker, CEO @ Headspace
- 20VC: Why The Whole Industry Is Backward Looking, The Best Funds Are Entrepreneur Led and Venture Is All About Access with Alex Bangash, Founder @ Trusted Insight
- 20VC: Arielle Zuckerberg @ Kleiner Perkins: A Review Of My First 6 Months in Venture
- 20VC FF 035: Why Crowdfunding Is Not Right For Tech Startups with Ryan Caldbeck @ CircleUp
- 1 more episode that year, every mention in 2016 →
2015 7 mentions in 5 episodes 1 per episode
- FF 009: How To Leverage Your Connections To Grow Your Business with Sarah Schupp, Founder & CEO @ University Parent
- 20 VC 033: The Pros and Cons of Venture Capital, Atomico and Entrepreneurship with Chris Dark, President International @ C2FO
- 20 VC: The Ultimate Guide To Marketplaces with Boris Wertz, Founding Partner @ Version One Ventures
- 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups
- 20 VC 063: What It Takes To Standout In A Crowded Market with Ezra Galston @ Chicago Ventures
- every mention in 2015, scene by scene →
Appearances (1)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| 20VC: a16z's Ben Horowitz on How To Create An Environment of Trust with Founders, How and | Oct 28, 2019 | 20m |