Ben Horowitz
Co-Founder and General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz. On 6 shows, 94 appearances, plus 2 compilation re-airs not counted. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
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.
6shows
94appearances
945statements
153resolved
65supported
35contradicted
42%fully supported
424said about them ↓ Everything Ben Horowitz said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Horowitz: Donald Trump is the right choice for startups and Little Tech
“For a little tech we think Donald Trump is actually the right choice”
Horowitz: Big Tech's startup cloud deals involve illegal roundtripping accounting
“The big tech companies have done this thing which we thought was illegal because we observed it occur at AOL and people went to jail, but what they've done is they invest in startups, you know, huge amounts of money. Microsoft and Amazon and Google are all doi…”
Horowitz: Google and Microsoft push for centralized Chinese-style AI control
“Like we go to the China model that Google and Microsoft are advocating for this Chinese model of only a few can control AI. We're going to be in big trouble.”
Horowitz: Scientists absolutely knew COVID-19 originated from a lab leak
“The lab leak was a great example of that. The, you know, people absolutely knew as a lab leak, the scientists absolutely knew as a lab leak, but for the greater good we're going to say it was not.”
Horowitz: Defunding the police effectively terrorizes poor communities
“When you go defund the police, we're not gonna enforce law, you're basically terrorizing the poor community.”
Horowitz: Anthropic has the worst code security practices in AI
“Their reputation is they have the literally the worst security practices in the entire industry with respect to their own code.”
Horowitz: Anthony Fauci is a sociopath completely divorced from the truth
“I think Fauci, you know, whether you like him or not, he is, I think he's, he, he's a bit of a sociopath. I mean, he is completely divorced from the truth. And he feels no guilt about it. The, you know, he never felt any guilt about the whole AIDS thing, despi…”
Horowitz: Gensler and Warren refused to meet with a16z on crypto policy
“They didn't, ah, even say anything out loud, but they would not take a meeting with us, like, you know, none of the people in charge of those agencies, Gary Gensler, wouldn't meet with us, Elizabeth Warren, wouldn't meet with, like, nobody to even hear why we …”
Horowitz: SEC aims to destroy crypto industry rather than protect consumers
“The SEC has been against that because they're not really for protecting consumers. They're you know, just for wrecking the industry.”
Horowitz: The SEC has sued over 30 a16z portfolio companies
“So they've sued, I think, over 30 of our companies.”
Horowitz: Excusing October 7th violence reflects a return to tribal morality
“You can kind of see some of that tribalism coming back. Back in America where people like, well, you know, it's kind of a race. Well, we see it a lot right now in the Israel-Palestinian conflict where they think there's a certain set of people that say, oh, Oc…”
Horowitz: Google and Microsoft use safety rhetoric to lobby against open-source AI
“And they do it like the really kind of nasty thing is they claim, oh, it's for safety. You know, we've created an alien that we can't control, but we're not going to stop working on it. We're going to keep building it as fast as we can. And we're going to buy …”
Horowitz: AI economic value will accrue to tools, not base models
“The actual layer where the value is gonna crew is gonna be like tools, orchestration, that kind of thing, because you can just plug in whatever the best model is at the time. Whereas the models are gonna be competing, you know, in a death battle with each othe…”
Horowitz: Coercing banks to debank legal industries mirrors fascist operational methods
“This is exactly how fascism worked. This is how Nazi Germany worked. They use private corporations to kind of confiscate people's stuff and you know, do these kinds of techniques to them.”
Horowitz: 50 years of affirmative action failed to help African Americans
“I think, look, I think it's clearly not working also in the, yeah, I mean, they were there, you know, with the kind of ruling on affirmative action, there were so many studies that showed that It didn't actually help African-Americans. 50 years, you know, forg…”
Horowitz: Rejecting Roland Fryer's police research led to a spike in murders
“What happened subsequently is his recommendation or his kind of ideas were not taken by society. What was taken were people who were kind of, who did far worse or no research. And, but were experts and, you know, kind of the result was the defund the police mo…”
Horowitz: Uber's post-Kalanick culture became much more milquetoast
“The culture they went to, which was a reaction to the resistance, just ended up being a much more milquetoast culture than the original Uber culture was a special very pronounced culture.”
Horowitz: Big AI labs stumble due to employee addiction to public validation
“Why did the big labs, you know, smack themselves in the face? Well, it's because they need that external validation for their employees, because their employees are addicted to it.”
Horowitz: US lost manufacturing skill outside of Elon Musk's companies
“We were the best in the world by far. We taught the world how to do was manufacture, and now we've basically forgotten how to do it as a country other than like Elon. Like if you need somebody who knows how to manufacture, you literally have to get them from E…”
Horowitz: Saudi Arabia is transitioning from a tribal society to a modern ally
“Saudi Arabia is going from this, ah, kind of tribal, ah, different kind of society, I would just say, to kind of a modern, you know, like, highly civilized, you know, player in the modern world and full ally of the United States.”
Horowitz: Norway's unrealized capital gains tax ended its tech ecosystem
“And so I think Norway introduced a unrealized capital gains tax, and that, that kind of effectively ended the tech ecosystem there.”
Horowitz: Anthropic's defense deal collapsed because they wanted out, not philosophy
“If you understand deals, particularly software deals, you realize that that deal did not fall apart because of philosophical differences. It fell apart because anthropic wanted out of the deal.”
Horowitz: Employees who refuse to support US defense work can leave a16z
“You're gonna decide that those people who are sacrificing their lives, putting their lives on the line to protect us, don't get the best technology? Like, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. So, like, you don't have to work here if you want to do that.”
The other half of the tape: Ben Horowitz's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 387 times in 175 episodes across the shows. 37 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 44Marc Andreessen 36David George 21Martin Casado 15Lenny Rachitsky 15Anish Acharya 15Alex Bouaziz 14Scott Cooper 7
Statements about Ben Horowitz, by other people (37)
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.”
Loudcloud raised $120 million at an $820 million post-money valuation
“Ben Horowitz and I spent a bunch of time raising this very large round. We raised a hundred and twenty million dollars at an eight hundred and twenty million dollar post money valuation, right?”
Levie: Box scaled aggressively using Ben Horowitz's 'Fat Startup' playbook
“And we let's just say we very much took that to heart. And we basically like deployed every single lesson. Which was, like, the name of the game is you get big fast, you scale aggressively, and that was a very important kind of period in our company's journey.”
Ovitz: Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz Have 'Frightening' Startup Recall
“I remember sitting with Mark and Ben at a Y Combinator day and Every presentation, Mark would go, yep, 19 so-and-so saw that, been there, done that. And Ben would say, yep, that didn't work. And the frame of reference is, and the memory is frightening.”
Chief Gennaro: Ben and Felicia Horowitz funded LVMPD 911 call terminals
“And that's something that, you know, you and Felicia did, you came in and you bought all those nine one call terminals for us.”
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.”
Balaji: Andreessen, Horowitz, Ravikant, Armstrong, and Ehrsam are daily intellectual sparring partners
“Mark and I have kept up a high bandwidth conversation for almost a decade now. Mark and Ben for sure. Neville Rovi-Kant you know, who's a very good friend of mine. And Armstrong, Fred Urson. These are really smart guys who like basically folks who I get a boun…”
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…”
Andreessen recommends 'Lean Startup', 'Hard Thing About Hard Things', 'Zero to One'
“The Lean Startup book by Eric Reese is very, very good and that book should be read front to back. Second is, ah, Ben Horowitz's book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, I can't recommend too highly. And the third is Peter Thiel just wrote a book called Zero to…”
RealtyShares gives every employee Ben Horowitz's 'Hard Thing About Hard Things'
“That has been a book that every employee at realty shares gets a copy of.”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 174
the a16z Podcast 154
Lenny's Podcast 28
Invest Like the Best 21
My First Million 7
the MAD Podcast 3
2026 72 mentions in 23 episodes 3 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
- Marc Andreessen's 2026 Outlook: AI Timelines, US vs. China, and The Price of AI
- Why companies are becoming a series of loops | Anish Acharya (a16z)
- Inside The Life of Silicon Valley's First Athlete Investor | Magic Johnson
- How AI Changes the Economics of Innovation
- Everyone Is Still Undersizing the AI Market | Eric Vishria · Invest Like The Best
- The AI Opportunity that goes beyond Models
- 15 more episodes that year, every mention in 2026 →
2025 97 mentions in 36 episodes 3 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
- How a16z Growth Invests · Invest Like The Best
- Michael Ovitz - Turning Potential Into Prominence · Invest Like The Best
- The Godmother of AI on jobs, robots & why world models are next | Dr. Fei-Fei Li
- Marc Andreessen Reveals His Biggest Wins and Mistakes at a16z
- 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
- JD Vance on the Future of America
- 28 more episodes that year, every mention in 2025 →
2024 15 mentions in 9 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
- How To Go Beast Mode As A Founder
- Lessons from a 2-time unicorn builder, 50-time startup advisor and 20-time board member | Uri Levine
- Becoming more strategic, navigating difficult colleagues, founder mode, more | Anneka Gupta
- 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
- America Needs More Techno-Optimism, with Marc Andreessen and Tyler Cowen
- 1 more episode that year, every mention in 2024 →
2023 14 mentions in 7 episodes 2 per episode
- Alex Bouaziz: How We Became a $12B HR Company with 2,000 Remote Employees | 20VC #973 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Disrupting the World's Largest Asset Class with Adam Neumann
- Scaling Duolingo, embracing failure, and insight into Latin America’s tech scene | Gina Gotthilf
- AI Will Save The World with Marc Andreessen and Martin Casado
- Brian Chesky’s new playbook
- The 10 traits of great PMs, AI, and Slack’s approach to product | Noah Weiss (Slack, Google)
- Taxi mafias, cash vaults & 100% MoM growth: The story of SEA’s biggest startup | Kevin Aluwi (Gojek)
- every mention in 2023, scene by scene →
2022 27 mentions in 14 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
- How to work through fear, give hard feedback, and doing layoffs with grace | Matt Mochary
- Why Technology Still Matters with Marc Andreessen
- 6 more episodes that year, every mention in 2022 →
2021 17 mentions in 8 episodes 2 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
- How Virtual Horses are Making Millions & A Potential 9-Figure Company | My First Million #181
- Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Communities & Crypto | MFM #178
- Fireside Chat: Dev Ittycheria (President & CEO, MongoDB) with Matt Turck (Partner, FirstMark)
- MFM #162: Why Clubhouse Will Fail
- 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 11 mentions in 10 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
- 2 more episodes that year, every mention in 2020 →
2019 82 mentions in 37 episodes 2 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
- a16z Podcast | For the Billions of Creatives Out There
- 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
- a16z Podcast | Creating a Category, from Pricing to Positioning
- a16z Podcast | Startups and Pendulum Swings Through Ideas, Time, Fame, and Money
- a16z Podcast | Investing in (Business and Career) Change
- a16z Podcast | What Makes the Valley Work
- 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
- 29 more episodes that year, every mention in 2019 →
2018 22 mentions in 8 episodes 3 per episode
- 10 Years Too Early: On a Tech Career, Business, and Investing
- Winning Founders & Influencing Everyone: Margit Wennmachers at Startup Grind Europe
- 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
- Finance as Strategy: When and How Startups Should Build a Finance Function
- 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?
- Going to Market When No Market Exists
- 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 12 mentions in 9 episodes 1 per episode
- Challenges in Healthcare Innovation
- 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"
- 16 Questions About Self Driving Cars
- Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon
- Panel: Alternative Data in Financial Services (FirstMark's Data Driven)
- 1 more episode that year, every mention in 2017 →
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 →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Ben's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a16zLEDGER | Co-Founder and General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz | 89 +2 | 835 | 41% 58/141 | full record on the a16z Podcast → |
| INVEST LIKE THE BESTLEDGER | Co-Founder and General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz | 1 | 31 | 25% 1/4 | full record on Invest Like the Best → |
| LENNY'S PODCASTLEDGER | Co-Founder and General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz | 1 | 26 | 0% 0/1 | full record on Lenny's Podcast → |
| MY FIRST MILLIONLEDGER | Co-Founder and General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz | 1 | 24 | 100% 3/3 | full record on My First Million → |
| MADLEDGER | Co-Founder and General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz | 1 | 17 | — | full record on the MAD Podcast → |
| 20VCLEDGER | Co-Founder and General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz | 1 | 12 | 75% 3/4 | full record on 20VC → |