#392: Ben Horowitz — What You Do Is Who You Are >> Lessons from Silicon Valley, Andy Grove, Genghis Khan, Slave Revolutions, and More

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Find Hello Monday with Jesse Hemple. That's J E S S I. H E M P E L We can just look Up Hello Monday on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hello, boys and girls, this is Tim Ferris, and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, where it is my job every episode to attempt to deconstruct world class performers of all different types to tease out.

the routines, favorite books, habits. and so on that you may apply to your own life. My guest this episode is Ben Horowitz. You can find him on Twitter at B Horowitz, H O R O W I T Z. Ben is a co-founder and general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Hard Thing About Hard Things. And the brand new Harper Business book, What You Do Is Who You Are

He also created the A sixteen Z Cultural leadership fund. If you are wondering what A sixteen Z Stands for just count the number of letters. between the beginning and the end of Andrews and Horowitz. So he created the A sixteen Z Cultural Leadership Fund to connect cultural leaders to the best new technology companies and enable more young African Americans to enter the technology industry. Prior to A sixteen Z. That's Andrew Zenhorowitz. Ben was co-founder and CEO of Opsware, formerly known as LoudCloud, which was acquired by Hewlett Packard for$1.6 billion in 2007. Previously, Ben ran several product divisions at Netscape Communications, including the widely acclaimed directory and security product line.

He has an M S and BA in computer science from UCLA and Columbia University, respectively. So without further ado, please enjoy this wide ranging conversation with the one and only Ben Horwitz. Ben, welcome to the show. Thanks, Tim. Very excited to be here. And I have so many questions. I have pages and pages of questions. We'll try to get to as many as possible.

I thought I would start with a name that I know you're familiar with, and that is Andy Grove, that may not be a name that all people know, but could you please describe who Andy is, why he's interesting to you. Yeah, so Andy uh was kind of one of the Found of Intel.

Um, which is kind of the foundational company of Silicon Valley, um, if there was any. And and foundational not only technologically, but also culturally. Um I think importantly, and just an amazing guy, probably You know, for my money, the best CEO we ever had out here. Um but you know he started his life he was a refugee um from Hungary uh from World War Two, and you know, he had to escape the Nazis and then the communists. Uh and kind of

Came over on a boat. And with I forgot they gave him like twenty seven dollars when he got to New York and uh he And he kinda went to school at C C N Y and became a physicist and then you know, eventually uh met up with um

Bob Noise. He actually Told me a very funny story uh towards the end of his life where uh Gordon Moore, who is the you know the famous Moore's Law and the Founder Also a co founder of Intel. Um When they brought Andy in, um

To Fairchild semiconductor. Uh The way they picked him out, uh Nanny told me it's very light, he said Uh he finished his PhD at Berkeley in two and a half years. Um and they and Gordon Moore had found that people who finish their PhD quickly. Uh correlate with high performers. So that's how he got the job. Well that's perfect.

Jumping off point, um uh uh for about a half a dozen things that I was meaning to get to anyway, but let's I'll I'll try to ratchet back my my my caffeine enthusiasm and and focus on Andy f uh for uh a bit longer. High output management. Uh you uh wrote the forward to a reprint of that book which

When I lived in Silicon Valley I was able to observe the the rebirth of sort of the resurgence of this book and its popularity. And I know some incredible founders who have stacks of this book. in their offices to give away. Uh Why did you

agree or offer to write the forward. And What are some of the takeaways that people might find in that book or that you found of particular value? Yeah, well y you know, it was my favorite management book by far. In fact I I think it might have been the only management book that I ever read that I liked. So it was uh you know Quite a thing for me.

When Andy called me um and he said, Ben, you know, I was watching you give this talk at Stanford. Um And you know, in the talk, I was talking about my book, uh, my first book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, and somebody asked me why I wrote it, and I said, Well, you know, when I was a kid, Um I read this book, High Output Management, and it like it was amazing because it's the CEO of Intel, which is like the most important company in technology.

And he wrote this book and it wasn't to like You know say how great he was, or are they gonna like all these books that these guys write who you know run big companies and how like they here's when I learned the value of a dollar and then this is when I be built a great big company and all this kind of thing they say. Um but it was a book to teach like young people like myself how to manage. Um so it was just a complete contribution back to the environment.

With really, you know, in a way nothing in it for him. And You know, I always when I you know reading that book, I said, Well if I ever make it, if I ever kind of become anybody that anybody wants to listen to I'm gonna write the sequel to high output management. And that was uh I tried to do with the hard thing about hard things. When he called me You know, uh the there was no question. I was like a hundred percent I'll write the forward.

Um, but the reason it was such a great book is uh it was kind of the original um hard thing about hard things in that most management books are like here's all the obvious easy stuff and here's like eight Like random steps to do the most easiest thing in the world that anybody could figure out. Like Who, you know, wasn't like an idiot. But Andy Grove, it was like he went

All the way like right to the worst, hardest, most messed up things that you'd have to do. So like you know, one of the things I remember from the book is he goes, Well, hey Look, you're writing performance review and the rule of thumb is you never put anything in a re performance review that you haven't already told the employee. Right. Yeah, and then reading like yep, that's the rule. That's what we do. And he's like okay, so now you're at the performance review. And there's something that the employee needs to improve that you haven't told them what do you do?

And it's like okay, that's a that's a real like thing. And it's like do you put it in the review or do you not put it in the review? And uh You know, his thing is you gotta put in the review. And like It's bad that you didn't tell'em, but it's worse to not tell'em now. And you know, and those kinds of difficult decisions like you know, how you really do that or like, you know, it's like okay You know, people are late to meetings.

you know, they're wasting everybody's time, so stealing money from the company like But like it's very awkward to deal with them and so how do you deal with them on that and that kind of thing, which is really what you need to know to put any of these management techniques into effect as like How do you do it when there's real conflict? And uh you know, that's why it's such a just just an amazing book.

Um So you mentioned the the coming to meetings late. Uh and in in one of your uh blog posts you have some You have some fantastic blog posts and excellent writing, both of course on the web in this case and then But that you you share an anecdote.

Uh that begins with Uh uh for example, we could talk about sort of wartime versus peacetime CEOs, but a basic principle in most management books is that you should never embarrass an employee But uh Andy Grove, in the situation that you just mentioned, once said to an employee who entered a meeting late. quote, all I have in this world is time and you're wasting my time. That's one of my favorite things. And uh and we'll we'll we'll almost And you have to realize when he said that like he was like God. So it was like God too God of Intel and like you're walking to an Intel meeting so it's like God telling you that you're wasting his time. Uh so I I suppose the

The First question that I'd like to ask, and we may end up getting into the wartime versus peacetime CEO uh differentiation, but what occurs to me is that he has th he has a scientific background. He's an engineering and physics background. You also have a computer science background How do you Think about Management.

What is and I know this is a very broad question, but do do you think about management differently than many people it would seem to be that the answer is yes, uh also just based on the observation you had about most management books, which I would agree with. How how has your experience your life experience maybe including Computer science.

informed how you approach or think about management. Well, I think it's uh y you know, it's an interesting combination'cause there's a part of an engineering background that's extremely helpful, which is um You know, can you think about systems and can you think about like how like broad scale systems interactions occur and like what the implications are And then there's a different part which is a very kind of uh

I would say high EQ component, which is In order to make that system work, you have to be able to see the company through the eyes Uh The people who are doing the work. Which are usually the people who are not in the room when you're making the decision.

And you have to understand how it's gonna affect them, how it's gonna change their behavior, and so forth. Um you know, just so for as an example of that, like You know, it's easy Like if somebody comes to you and they say, You know, Ben, I really deserve a raise and you could go Okay, well, you know, like I like you and I want you to like me, so I'll give you that raise, but

You have to think about Yeah, if you're Yeah. You go, Okay, well I How will it look to the people who are not here? Is that fair? Have they gotten a chance at it? Is this person just getting the raise because he came into my office?

Or like, you know, does he really deserve it? So do I have a systematic process to evaluate talent. And allocate the money that we have or Do I rent it. like that because I'm not really thinking about it from everybody else's perspective. And so you kind of end up needing Both.

Um To be good at it. And I think, you know, kind of going back to Andy Uh screaming at that employee, that that's kind of a little bit in the balance, right? Because you know that employee's definitely gonna be like ashamed and horrified and and maybe demotivated by him

uh publicly embarrassing him. But in that instance what he was doing was something different, which was He was setting the culture and saying look Culturally Fundamentally.

Like I'm gonna teach everybody in this company a lesson by saying something that's so powerful and so colorful that it's gonna spread like wildfire through my company and everybody's gonna know. That it's not okay to waste people's time by being late for a meeting. And that's more important in this case Than the individual. So it gets, you know, it's kind of a Confucian approach. The good of the individual must be sacrificed for the good of the whole. And you have to do that. as CEO from time to time. Now you don't want to do it gratuitously

Because that is definitely gonna hurt somebody's feelings. So you know, and and maybe that's a A a great employee Or whatever, but you do, you know, and particularly if The culture is in place and there Kind of

willfully ignoring the culture, which I you know, I I believe is the case in this case. Um Then you have to kind of value the system and value that above that person's feelings. And these are kind of the trade offs that you make. Uh in management. And that's why it is complicated to get it right.

Uh and why like it's not You know. It's always like broken down in management books are often it's like you're talking to one person at a time. And that's never the case. You're always talking to everybody. If this is a useful distinction, I'd love for you to to

the uh two terms for us or the differences between two terms, and that is management and leadership. How do you How do you distinguish between those two? I know it seems like a stupid question, maybe, but uh If I'd love for you to if if you're able to just comment on that for a second, or if it's a bad question, we can move on. I mean I think

A lot of leadership is um or the way I think about it. And you know then they're kind of you know, we're You know, my own dictionary of it is Yeah, leadership the the there's kind of a is a lot of getting is the art of kind of getting people to follow you. Um and as uh

Colin Powell said, you know, if only out of curiosity. Um And I think so that that involves kind of You know

creating a feeling uh Um on People that you That you care about them in a way and you care about uh you know, their goals and objectives and and you know, what they want out of life and

People want to follow people. who have, you know, some number of those attributes. Um Management gets more into okay, you have this great vision, you've articulated everybody likes it, but like how do you operationalize it? How do you kind of break it down into its steps? How do you make sure that people who need to communicate are communicating um

In these kinds of things. So it's kind of You know, leader a lot of leadership is you know, knowing what to do, getting people to follow you And then You know, management involves uh getting people to do what you know. Um and that's a kind of

A little bit of different part of your brain. It's Yeah, leadership's a little more on the creative side, management's you know, requires a little more Discipline and systematization.

on the former in the case of leadership, getting people to follow you if only out of curiosity. And the and this may may not be a fit, but in the course of doing research for this conversation uh I I came across mention of a paper called Good product manager, bad product manager. Yeah. And it it seems like at least the way it was phrased in this fortune piece.

Uh it bec it quote became a bible for the startups, in this case referring to Netscape. Uh for the startup's unpolished young executives. So could you describe a That paper. And what impact it had on

You And or the people around you when it came out. Yeah, so you know it's funny as a It was a piece I wrote out of pure frustration. So turns out like product manager is a

weird job in Silicon Valley in that In every single company It means something different. Um You know, and so like what you do is not doesn't really translate well from one company to the next. And many companies

have just bad product management functions. And so you know, the people that I kind of inherited when I got the job to run the team Um All have these like

different in differing and weird views on what the job was. And I you know, I always found myself like yelling at them, going like does that make any sense to you? That kind of thing. You know, like I I was like at that level of frustration. And then you know, one day I was just like, you know, I have to Training like the team on what I want and I was like but I I don't have time to put a training program together. So I sat down, I just wrote this document. Good product manager, bad product manager. And then the thing I had in my

You know, head was like And and it's a bad thought, but it was like This is gonna be like dog training, you know, like bad, bad dog. Good dog. Bad dog. And so that's where the name came from. But it was really just, you know, like like this is what good product managers do and this is what bad product managers do and just like let's just be clear on that so like you'll know

You can anticipate what I'm gonna say if you do something bad and and we don't have to have that conversation all the time. Um And so that that's all it started out to be. And then what happened was kind of as you know as you said is like People valued just getting that information so much that

Not only did My team used it, but then everybody at Netscape started using it and then like, you know A huge number of people Yeah, product managers in Silicon Valley still like refer to that thing which I wrote in nineteen ninety five. And what it taught me was

Like Everybody No matter how smart they are, no matter like if they went to Stanford or Harvard or whatever. They can always use training in the job that you want them to do because the job that you need them to do is one these jobs are very complex

And they uh You know, and and they're different. And uh and a lot of it is what do you expect as a manager. And so if you're a manager who doesn't train your people, You probab I can't imagine you're good at At your job.

Um, just'cause there's no way they're gonna be able to read your mind on everything. So th I'd like to talk about Uh about more lessons learned, and then I'm going to segue from that into how you might teach others, because in a lot of ways you do teach others. Uh let's let's chat about Bill Campbell.

And um Bill Campbell has come up once before on this podcast when I had a conversation with Eric Schmidt. uh legendary figure known throughout the valley as Coach has has uh advised people like Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, and so on. Uh w could you uh Sheer.

what your relationship was like with Bill and What Uh some of the things or any of the things that you that you really absorbed From Bill. Yeah, so you know, uh I mean

He was just such a Great help to me. Um As CEO and a lot of it was just uh You know, ha being able to have a conversation with somebody who knew what I was talking about and um

And who knew what they were talking about, you know, at the same time, which is when you're CEO it's just very difficult to have those in a way, you know, that's kind of confidential and And like not with like somebody who could Like remove you

Uh and that kind of thing. And so he was just um Invaluable to me. In that Sense. And and a lot of what was so great about him is you know, we could So on the one hand, like we could argue about whatever and like he would have input and like maybe I would you know listen to it, maybe I won't. But it would never whatever I did never affected the relationship. You know, it was it was just that kind of thing with him.

Um but the thing that he did better than Anybody that I've worked with is he could really see the company through the employee like through the eyes of every single employee. He he knew how people would react to every single decision. And you know, and he wasn't even running the company. He would just come in once in a while and so forth. He'd know enough people in it, he would But he had just like this incredible Since

About Yeah. Uh And And you know, and and that just proved to be very valuable. So I'll give you an example. So uh

Yeah, we had done this giant deal with E D S to sell them kind of our old we had this uh business that was Can I kind of basically make us bankrupt. By doing the transaction with D D S we kind of escaped bankruptcy and then kind of launched into this other business, the software business, which eventually became like worth like one point six billion dollars or I think that was it. Um

And You know, so it's like the probably the most important deal we'd ever done as a company, and you know, we do the deal And I go, Bill, like, you know, we got the deal done, I can't even believe it, you know, we're gonna announce it. Yeah, I gotta go to New York on Monday and we're gonna announce it and he's like No, no, no, you can't go. And I was like, Well why can't I go? And he's like, Well like

when you do the deal, right, like this deal's gonna involve selling some employees to them, laying some people off and so forth. As soon as that news hits, you gotta be in person in the company. Talking to the employees and letting everybody know where they stand as quickly as possible. And I was like

Oh, of course he's right. You know, I I haven't even like thought that through And Had I not done that, um you know, I so I did that, I sent Mark to New York to do the announcement. But had I not done that, had I not kind of stayed back and had that conversation, I don't think we would have made it as a company because

That day ended up being Pivotal. you know, to reconstructing the trust that I needed to kinda run the company going forward. And you know, that that that's the kind of uh value that Bill added. Um but I you know I if you want to like know who he is, the the only person I've ever met who's like could do the thing that Bill could do, uh, is Oprah Winfrey. Hm. Um I know that sounds probably

Weird in a way, but like Opera Winfrey can like Meet you and talk to you for five minutes. And she can know you as well as somebody who's known you ten years. And Bill could do that too. That's so wild. And Yeah.

And you may have run into something like that, but it is amazing. What what do you think is behind that? Is it an ability to see behind the words and just deeply empathically Sense. more about your core personality and what's shaped it than other people. What allows an opera, for instance to do that. Do you do have do you have any uh any theories? Yeah, so uh

I it's definitely a combination of things that I don't possess. Um so it's a little hard to read it, but Y you know, yeah, she Kind of. Can read in every signal you're sending so like the tone of your voice, the expression on your face, like the way you're holding your hands, everything like is

complete high fidelity information to her. And then she knows the exact right question to ask to get to the deeper level of what's going on. Um And

I you know, like I've seen her do it, I've seen Bill do it. I learn from it, but like I I like literally don't have the capacity to do it. Anywhere near their level. Um

But yeah, it's some combination of like they're able to just process way, way more information about a person much, much faster, and then great retention on like the thousand people they've met before that might match to that. And it is it's super impressive, though. Yeah, there is uh It's

It's I enjoy trying deconstruct the secret sauce but sometimes it is just impossible to do. Yeah, there's certain people who are hardwired for a a different spectrum of of perception. Uh on the other hand, there are a lot of coachable or teachable skills. And if we're if we're looking at management, I'd like to shift from

In some respect uh student of Bill or advice receiver of Bill Campbell to advice giver. And you know, Mark Zuckerberg has said that you are the management guru. to all of the young entrepreneurs in the valley. And I wanna I wanna dig into that for a second because uh of course you have much vaster experience than I do, but having spent

almost twenty years in Silicon Valley before moving. spent a lot of time with first time startup founders who in some cases have a real tiger by the tail. And many of these CEOs R really great product people with no real management experience to speak of who have never had this type of

uh game to lose, if that makes sense. Uh Wha what would you teach or what do you teach or advise someone like that. If you have, say, a first afternoon meeting with them or a few hours, they're a new portfolio company, in walks, this

Bewildered CEO who's Uh Uh how d how do you how do you begin to cultivate them or advise them as a manager in training, so to speak, or a CEO in training.

Yeah, so y you know, th they're all different, but there's things that are similar about them, you know, and some of them are good at some things and others About other I don't know that there's a uh Like kind of thing that I would say to any of'em.

But you know, one thing they all struggle with is How to Build uh their team, you know, particularly their management team. And and kind of when what you're speaking about, okay

Like it's different if you know they're not succeeding or whatever, but if they're succeeding and like the company's kinda degenerating'cause they don't know how to run it. Um те не usually kind of gets into uh this whole executive hiring, integrating, managing problem and this is

First of all, none of them are good at it. Like we've never had a first time CEO who was good at this. And I know I wasn't good at it when I started. And the problem is Okay, you know, your board goes, Hey, you you need to hire like a CFO. Like, you know, somebody's gotta keep track of this place. It's it's going crazy. Like what are you doing? You go Okay, I'm gonna hire a CFO and you go, Okay, uh you know and you go, Well, I'm the CEO, so I must know how to do that. But you don't know how to do that. And not only that, like you've never worked in a finance organization, you don't even know what the CFO job is. Like I always ask my you know, it's like you know.

Uh What's a good control structure? How do you distinguish a good one from a bad one? You know, like and they have no idea. Like and so like how are they gonna interview a CFO? It's sort of like Interviewing a Japanese interpreter if you don't know Japanese. Now I'm gonna I'm gonna plead ignorance uh before we get too deep into the weeds. What is a control structure in this context? Yeah, so you know, just uh how does money get spent, you know, like do you know every dollar that's getting spent, you know, when money comes in, like do you account for it properly, these kinds of things? Um and how do you do that systematically as the company grows and you know people have budgets and all these kinds of things. Uh

So you get You know, so the so it's just something that they don't know how to do, uh And they don't know how to ask say that they don't know how to do it, and they don't know how to kind of learn how to do it. And so I always like to just start with Okay, like let's talk about a process for learning. How to

you know, possibly at least get a criteria for your company for this position, not like a general like uh, you know T platonic form of a CFO, because that doesn't exist. But like a CFO for this company right now, like what do we need? And then we You know, how do we do that? Well maybe we should talk to some CFOs. See what they would hire for us, see if that matches us, you know, see how they would test for it in an interview and then, you know, kind of get deeper into it.

But even as you go through all that, like You know, Then you Okay, once that CFO gets signed. How do you teach them about your company? You know, what does day one look like? How do you integrate them? These kinds of things. So it's you know, it really is kind of has to be a hand over hand

Um Instruction and then like You know, once they're in there If you hire somebody, you know, a lot of times these COs will hire somebody who's so

senior and so aggressive, you know, because they went for the biggest resume they could find, and the person wants doesn't want to be CFO, they want to be CEO. Uh And then you know that person will start um, you know, trying to grab territory from the CEO and all these kinds of things, and you've got politics you've got to handle and And so yeah, it's just a long, I would say

It's not a quick manual. It's a kind of Ongoing conversation to understand where they are, what they have to do, how to retain their mojo, all that kinda thing. And uh Yeah. Well, I'll I'll start with saying that the hard thing about hard things, your book uh one of your books, I should say, is uh

One of the most recommended uh books that has come up in the last handful of years on this podcast. By w what I would consider certainly high performing founders and CEOs. Uh you you mentioned or we mentioned high output management earlier. Are there any other books that you would give to A first time founder who does have a tiger by the tail who's who's doing well but clearly

out of their depth in this n in a in a new level of complexity with with running what what is turning into a a company as opposed to just a A a good product. Yeah, so you know, it's funny, people always ask like, what are the management books you'd recommend? And I'd be like, I uh I don't know. Um

So uh You know, I think that um you know and it depends A a little on The leader. You know, one of the books that I Uh

have been recommending for years is a book written by Cl R James um in nineteen thirty seven called uh The black Jacobins, which is The story of the uh Haitian revolution. And you go, Okay, what kind of leadership book is that? But It turns out that the uh

the you know that the Toussaint Louverture who kind of led that revolution was a Basically a management And Cultural genius like

Better than anybody that I've ever Kind of read about or Or learn from the And You know, it just ends up being a great leadership book. I think uh Colin Powell's book

Um His autobiography is Very, very interesting on leadership. Uh And um

You know, there there's a bunch of s yeah I think, you know, like if it's a little company, Eric Reese's book is great, you know, the lean startup. Um yeah, I mean a amazing Yeah. Teaching you things that Um You know, particularly if you've not

built a new company before Or just really fundamental lessons uh and we see I mean you know the Uh lately that

You know, about kind of with Fat startups. Um Which were kind of all the ones from my era, but uh Yeah, the the dangers of a fat startup I think he really articulates amazingly well in that book and And that is one of the early traps you can fall into, particularly in an environment like this where there's a lot of venture capital money running around.

Mm-hmm. And the the job of CEO, um You know I I've enjoyed a lot of your writing and Uh in in one of your uh blog post. I think I think the title is Making Yourself a CEO. At least that's

Yeah, you talk about how the the job of CEO is a very unnatural Job. And that Uh yeah. And I'm I'm cherry picking here a couple of lines, but to be a good CEO in order to be liked in the long run, you must do many things that will upset people in the short run, unnatural things.

Um H how have you cultivated that ability in yourself or helped others to cultivate a willingness to be unpopular in the short run. I think this at least strikes me as a real critical

differentiator. Uh Could you speak to that? Yeah, so no that is you know, you've hit on probably one of the most important kinda Leadership. And

You know the easiest way. way to think about it is like if you make decisions that everybody likes all the time Then Those are the decisions they would have made without you. So you're not actually adding any value. So almost by definition, you know, uh a lot of the most important decisions end up being ones that, you know, people don't agree with and don't like and are difficult.

Um and cause people not to like you, at least. For a while. And you know, the way I generally work with CEOs on this is 'Cause it's very difficult.'Cause you know, they're

Th there's so much emotional psychological force pushing them to make uh kind of the wrong decision, the easy decision, the one that is gonna be the people pleasing decision. And a lot of it is just pointing out what's gonna happen, letting them make it. And then when the pain comes go

You remember we talked about this. And this is what happens and You know, a lot of it is just You have to go through making those mistakes to train yourself to you know it's kind of like a it's running towards the darkness, you know, like there's this

pain and dark area where you know like people aren't gonna like you, you know it's gonna suck. You know, you like maybe you have to fire somebody, maybe you have to lay them off. Maybe you have to make a very unpopular decision to cancel a project or whatever. Um But if you run away from that.

Because then you always know you have to do it. Like you you can sense it when you run a company. Um, if you run away from that, that's you know, that's when you really get a huge raging fire and that you know both Potentially burn down your company. And uh seems to me, and of I've never run a large company, but just in my interactions with various CEOs and founders that are not a

Um coming back to the CEO position is a very unnatural job. There are certain maybe uh technical abilities uh or procedural abilities maybe that are are pretty easily trained or or or relatively straightforward and then There are others that are perhaps uh

less explicitly taught and Uh One that you've uh written about before is the ability to manage your own psychology. Um what what tools or techniques have you personally found

or routines, anything at all really to be useful. For cultivating an ability to manage your own psychology. And and maybe you could just def Describe what that means.

Yeah, so I mean like it's uh It is certainly the hardest part of the job because what happens is and you don't think about this when you're starting a company. It's like one of these And I always talk to entrepreneurs about this. I'm like You know, if you knew what was involved when you started, you would never would have started. And they're like, Absolutely right, there's no way I would have done this. Yeah, which so it's kind of a blessing that you don't know, because if you did know then you know nothing would ever happen. Um

But Like The kind of thing that happens is okay, you have this idea to start a company and then if you just think about that socially, you know, like okay, so then you've got a lot of friends and relatives and like some of them are excited for you, some of them say that's never gonna work and you da da da and you want to prove them wrong and all that. But then you gotta go out and you've gotta sell people on the idea. So you've gotta hire people into this kind of vision that you have, and then you've gotta raise money behind it. And like often like some of that money might even come from like your relatives or that kind of thing.

Um, so you've got this money that people have entrusted you with, you've got careers that people have entrusted you with. And you start going and um then something goes wrong. It looks like like the company may not work. And so You know, what's the consequence of that? Well, like every relationship you have you're gonna violate um if it all goes down. And that uh

is super scary, um like it couldn't be more scary. And You know to not let that Thought. Where that set of thoughts paralyze you.

is you know, can be really difficult at times. And um A lot of it, you know, first You know, one of the most important things uh which I wrote about is first thing is you you can't think in prob you know, he you gotta not think the way investors think in probabilities. You have to just think in terms of How do I do this? Like

If there was a way out, like which way Is that And train your mind in that direction as opposed to well, there's a ninety percent chance that like we're not gonna get this deal. And if we don't get this deal, we're gonna whip the quarter. If we whip the quarter, we won't be able to raise money. If we won't be able to raise money, then I'm gonna have to lay everybody off. Like once you start thinking like that. Um You know, you you literally can't function.

And so kinda getting around to Okay, I've got one bullet in the gun. I have got to hit the target. Um so I'm gonna get do whatever I can to get as close as possible, and then like we're gonna shoot our best shot and there's gonna be no contingency plan. And no way out and no you know, like if somehow we

Don't make it, we don't make it, but like we're gonna die trying. And that you know, getting to that mentality is really the key to being an effective entrepreneur, I think. Hm. What have you found to be helpful for

managing the stress of that type of uh sort of existential threat level One shot, one kill. Yeah. the psychology. Uh are are there any particular habits or types of self talk or anything that you use or encourage that allow people Uh

Two perform better under those types of of circumstances. Well you know, like I I I don't want to exaggerate how good I was at it because uh You know, like I was up at two o'clock in the morning, like in a cold sweat, with my guts boiling, like all that stuff. Like it's not like I I didn't have that. So You know, i I wasn't that great at it in in terms of kind of managing it in that way, but

I think I mean the things that helped me were one just Always focusing on what I could do. Like there were so many things I couldn't do, so many things out of my control, so many things that Um I mean like I was in the middle of the Greatest. technology equity meltdown in the history of the world. So like there was nothing I could do about that. Right. Um although it was hurting me.

Um But I it just didn't make any sense to think about those things. Um so just you know really thinking about the things that you can do. And then you know, Bill Campbell was very it was just very helpful to just be able to talk to him and uh You know, it wasn't like he had any answers either, um, but

Just to have somebody that I can at least get it off my Yes. I was like, look, you know, we're in a spiral like and he's like, Yep, you're in a spiral and I was like, Okay Um I was like you know, and then here are the I think we have like Two shots to get out, and here they are, or and

You know. And that just just at least Talking it through and not feeling like I was missing anything. Um

But You know, I think a lot of people now they meditate and do other kinds of things. And so forth. And I you know, I I I would rep to that, but uh that's you know, that's not what I did at the time. So Just like sweating it out like and uh cut years off of my life and all that kind of thing. It it strikes me that one of your superpowers may be running towards The scary things and not away from the scary things. Uh which might

result in a lot of uh acute short term duress, but it it may ultimately result in less long term duress. Could you Uh explain The line. Sharpen your sharpen the contradictions. Ah. So yes, this is the line. I think this was from uh

Actually originally Karl Marx um and he was speaking of uh The You know, sharpen the contradictions between capital and labor. uh you know, to basically accelerate the revolution. Um And you know, and I definitely think Lenin used it, uh, because you know, Lennon was like amazing with rhetoric and

And uh that kind of thing. He was definitely a rhetorical genius. Um Also Kind of wrong about everything and had a horrible impact on the world, but like

That's a different story. Uh But w I like to use it in management because it's a great uh kind of cue for the CEO because what what happens in an organization is like you'll see Like

little disagreements between people and like a lot of your inclination is to like smooth things over. Um but the right answer is usually to sharpen the contradictions. And The reason you want to sharpen the contradictions is'cause that's there's information in that contradiction. There's information about like how you're not communicating, how the objectives are not aligned, how the strategy might be wrong.

And like You've gotta get that because that's where the truth is. Um, and so when you smooth that over, if you don't like bring it to a head um and resolve it. then you know you miss an opportunity. So it really is uh

You know, it's one of the most important techniques, I think. And I Any time, like in a board meeting, any time. Like I hear like a little bit of disagreement, or I see like, you know An inconsistency in the strategy. I that's always my cue to myself. I wanna

You know, that's when you get the answer. Now it's also a good way to start a revolution, so you gotta be careful. So so you are not a fan of the No Well maybe that too, but I was gonna say you're not you're not a fan of the default backpedaling, oh no, it's a miscommunication, that type of It may be, but like it's probably a systemic miscommunication. You know what I mean? And as opposed to like oh yeah, like you meant this and you meant that and like so now we're all happy. Nah, that's not what happened. That's almost everyone. Very rarely. You uh you have

A new book. Why why write A new book. I mean you're a gifted writer. But why why write a new book?

And why this book and could could you describe Uh could you describe what it is? Sure, yeah. So and that's a great question'cause after I wrote the last one, I was like I'm never writing another one. That was enough. So it surprised me, but You know It it's interesting because

When I was kind of first uh learning to be a CEO Um One of the you know, and I asked I asked Bill and I asked a lot of kind of others mentors like you know, what should I focus on? And you know, a lot of them said, you know, you should focus on culture Um

But then I said, Well how do I do that? And nobody really had any kinda like it was all these weird abstract ideas that Didn't uh they weren't compelling Yeah, they weren't well articulated.

Um And I never you know and it was always like a grope in the dark for me to try and understand like how to set the culture, how to change it. Uh And so I really kind of became obsessed with this question. For myself.

Um And you know, I did a lot of in in my life I've kind of been Interesting about like culture in the broader sense. And so, you know, I I just really, really, really uh spent a lot of time kind of Going through

You know history going through kind of Yeah. trying to understand how people did it, like what were the components and it turns out to be a You know

I think one of the most central Parts of management in that If you think about like management tools, you know, there's the mission statement and then there's the OKRs and KPIs, and you've got, you know, whatever your objectives, and you've got

You know, c all these kinds of things, but none of them really dictate the things that really define who you are, right? Like do you do you show up on time For meetings. You stay at the four seasons, you stay at the Red Roof Inn. Do people go home at five or do they go home at eight? You know, like What kind of company is this? What are all those behaviors? Do you get back to people like right away or do you never get back to them or you get back to them in three days and like

All those behaviours like Um But they're how people are behaving when you're not looking. So like what do you do about that?

And you know, how do you set that and how do you make that go Because that ultimately is really gonna speak not only to the quality of your company, but like what impression it makes on the world, right? Like is it a good company to do business with? Is it a bad company? Is it a place where people work? And their life becomes better as a w

place they work and their life becomes worse. You know, like what are all these things? And they're all a result of this like weird abstract thing. Cul culture. And so You know, as I started working with CEOs, like of course none of them know really how to deal with it at all. Like they have ideas, but you know, most of the ideas are like half baked and like mostly wrong.

Um, so I thought, you know, I should really go back. And restudy this problem and see if I can articulate it. And that's what the book's about. And it's called What You Do Is Who You Are Uh because it's that what you believe. It's not your values, it's not what you tweet. It's not like your social signal. It's like what you actually do. That's who you are.

Um, and once you get your head around that, you realize that's a big task. And the the subtitle is How to Create Your Business Culture and you I think alluded to at least one big component of this. But i is culture then I is you define it here like a shared set of behaviors and beliefs or ha how would you suggest People who are listening to this.

Yeah. Mm. Perhaps change how they think about culture or ask themselves uh questions that'll help to refine their thinking. If they're

CEOs or or founders of a company, for instance. Yeah, so The and uh One of the greatest, most longest lasting kinda Cultures and histories is

Way of the warrior, the culture of the samurai. Um you know, and you can like that culture or not, but you have to Give the credit. For the fact that it lasted like over a thousand years. Um and to hold a culture for that long is amazing. And one of the

Key insights from uh Bashido. Is A culture is not a set of beliefs. It's a set of actions.

And that's really what the culture is. Um, and this is why I think people miss it so much,'cause they think it's a shared set of beliefs, but it's not. It's A shared set of behaviors And

You don't even have to believe it. But if you behave that way, that's a culture. Um And This is

Yeah. You know, what you have to ask yourself is Okay, like what are the behaviors that show Like for real. um that we're doing what we believe

And I'll just give you an example in venture capital. every venture capital firm Sa They have great respect for the entrepreneurs. Very few treat entrepreneurs with any kind of respect at all.

Um And so you go like well how do you have that Disconnect. And it's Because th they haven't defined like what are the actions that translate into that

Um being a a real thing and a real part of the culture. Um And so Yeah, this is one of the like the problems we had to solve when we started the firm.

And one of the things I you know, one of the things I put in place very early on was like if you're late for a meeting with an entrepreneur and I collected fifty dollars today on the you know, it's ten dollars a minute. And people are like, Well what if I had to go to the bathroom? I don't care. You know, what if you ha I had to make a phone call, I don't care. And and the reason I have it that way is 'Cause I want them to ask me well why. And when they say why, I say because like building a company is really, really hard. And

you know, if s an entrepreneur takes time out of their day to come see us, like we're gonna respect the fact that that how hard it is and we're always gonna be on time. No excuses. Plan your day. Finish that phone call five minutes before you have to meet with the entrepreneur. go to the bathroom earlier or don't drink that eighth cup of coffee, you know, like but you need to do what you're supposed to do.

And you know, you have to set these kinds of things in place if you're really gonna live up to your ideals. And and that has to be across every dimension of the culture. You have to kind of program it in. Um Or you're just not gonna have it. You know, you're gonna talk it. And then if you talk it. And don't do it.

Then Your culture becomes You're a hypocrisy. Right. Is it

Is is culture something that you really have to get right at the get go, or is it possible to do a rehaul and make it work without replacing all of the employees at a company. Yeah, no, you you definitely can change culture. My actually Uh Two two of my favorite examples in the book are one, the the Haitian revolution where you know

Uh long turn. Reprogram slave culture. Into a military culture. Which is Almost unfathomable in that like not only did he have a slave culture, but it was

Now one of the most difficult slave culture it it was significantly more brutal kind of slave environment than um Mm. than the even like the US live environment. So

If you From Uh the beginning of kind of the transatlantic slave trade to the Haitian revolution, I think nine hundred thousand slaves were brought to Haiti. At the end there were four hundred and sixty five thousand left at the start of the revolution. Um in the юс

Five hundred thousand. uh slaves were brought in that same period and there were seven hundred thousand left. So like it was like that much quantitatively that much more brutal. So a very difficult environment Of low trust to build like a military force. And you know, he built an he built a culture that, you know, created an army that Defeated

Yeah. Yeah, Probably At least two of the

strongest militar European military powers in history, you know, France under Napoleon and the British Empire. And so You gotta say absolutely you can change a culture. And you know, he used the same guys, the same guys who were kind of slaves didn't even have clothes, that kind of thing, um to you know, to that kind of army. And then the other one that that I found very interesting is uh Shaka Senghor. Who is running away.

Prison game. Yeah. Culture to be like remarkably, you know, empathetic for you know, it's still a prison gang, so like it wasn't

All friendly. Uh but it was a really significant change. And those guys, you know, I've I I've met some of his guys you know, that he had there as they've gotten out of prison. And it's just remarkable the effect it had on them not only in that organization, but But coming out. So a hundred percent it's possible.

And and in either case Uh That is is at least based on my very limited understanding, was if not the only one of the only successful slave revolutions Uh, yeah, it's actually the only the only slave revolt in human history that ever uh resulted in

An independent state. What were any of the things that he did That helped. with that transformation from uh slave culture to sort of organized military

Culture. Yeah, so it's it Yeah, it He's a quite a remarkable guy along these lines in that um He was born a slave, so to sound was born a slave, uh

But He was so smart that the plantation owner Um Basically Made

Uh two cent Not only he he let him read, so he learned to read, uh he read things like Caesar's commentaries where he learned a lot of his military strategy and some economics books and so forth, but He also made him his driver, and so Tusant was able to go to all these meetings.

You know, on the island, so he learned French colonial culture. Um Kind of Roman military culture

And then he also knew slave culture, so he had this. Really comprehensive cultural understanding so he knew the elements of kind of the various things that That he wanted And so one of the one of the techniques he used, um

Which I I refer to as kind of create a shocking rule. Um was he had to solve this problem that Trust was super low. I mean the most difficult part of slave culture is.

It lacks trust. And the reason is trust is really a like a long term commodity in that. I'm gonna Ту сам форю людей, казай труста over time. Like it's gonna pay off for me. But if you're a slave, there's no tomorrow, right? They they've they you have no possessions. They can take your family at any point, they can kill you at any point. You don't own your own life. Um

So to build trust in that environment is almost impossible. Uh the way Tissant did it is you know, or one of the ways he did is he created this um role. Which was basically Officers can't cheat on their wives.

Um And You think about that and you go, Okay, well maybe that's not that big a deal, but like you're talking about an environment where like basically soldiers were paid in like raping and pillaging like that that was like a fundamental kind of thing that everybody did Outside of Tucson's army.

Um But he said no look I need to be able like Your word like Is everything and he had a great line about um

You know, he rather relinquish his command than break his word. That's how much emphasis he put on it. And like if I can't trust you To keep That one promise them you can't be an officer in the army. And so

Everybody wanted to know why that rule was in place. And so that kinda starts to Build up. Okay, here's how much we value uh you keeping your word. And so that was, you know, kind of one like little aspect that he did to reset the culture. You know, another thing was he

He really elevated Ethics. Um And you go well like Why is that important? Well, you know, you live.

with a higher code And you have a stronger bond because it gives you a feeling about yourself and a feeling about the people who you're working with that like we're doing something important. And uh you know, one thing he and he outlined to that end, he outlawed raping and pillaging. Um in the army

And uh he said, Look, we're we're after something more important, and that's liberty. And So we're not gonna rape it pillage and it became so powerful Um That the white women in Haiti

Refer to to set. As father. Like this is a s a slave. Who's running an army. They liked him better than the troops from Spain or Britain or France. They they liked like the h the slave army better because they treated them so much better.

And and there's a great story around this which and It's a legend, so you know, i it's one of those ones we don't know is true, but The name to sound loverture. He wasn't born he was born Toussaint because slaves only had a first name. It was part of the dehumanization process. And

Louverture came later and Nobody knows for sure why, but the s the story is uh You know, Napoleon hated him, like he drove Napoleon crazy. Napoleon suffered more casualties in Haiti than in Waterloo, and he wanted to get him so badly. And he got his generals around. He said, Like, how can you not Defeat this slave.

And the general said Well We Get'em backed up. We surround them, but every time we think we have them.

There is an opening. And so his name is Toussaint Louverture, Toussaint the opening. You know, I at least I m my belief is that You know, those people, those those women in the town. You know, they helped him.

Uh in a way that like Napoleon could never understand because he had elevated the culture to that degree. So you know, those are a couple of the things. I may go on for obviously hours and hours and hours on the Haitian revolution. Yeah, fascinating. I mean this is this is something I I knew nothing about before doing some homework for this conversation. And Uh I'm excited for uh hopefully the clarity And uh

with that sort of precise action that the book will bring to something that like you said, culture and quotation marks is often thrown around as a collection of very high altitude abstract concepts, but with without any real plausible next steps. But this r this really makes the abstract. It seems seems that way, that you're both giving examples historical and current day of how to install

These These shared and in some cases rewarded behaviors. Yes, yeah, definitely. Definitely. That's uh Yeah, no, that's why I'm so excited about the book. I mean Uh I just

I feel particularly now and and you know you see all these criticisms of uh High tech culture and like You know, this CO, how could he run a company like this and so forth. And I and whenever I see that, I'm like, Well It's really hard. It's really hard to get, you know, ten thousand people to behave the way you want'em to.

Um And You know, like the default is everybody's culture is screwed up. And uh it takes a lot of effort to make it good. Yeah. It makes me think of the uh There's a Ram Das quote, uh which I'll paraphrase, but it's something along the lines of if you think you're enlightened to go spend a week with your family, and it's like okay, like everybody should reflect on that when they're criticizing

uh a especially uh I would say a a relatively unseasoned or new to the job CEO's ability to get ten thousand people to behave well. It's very difficult. Uh It's very, very, very, very, very challenging. Uh what would you consider success for

this book. What type of outcomes would you like to see in the world? Yeah, but that that's a great question. It's funny,'cause when I wrote the first one, my goal was that the CEOs in the portfolio would read it. Um And And that turned out to be a good goal'cause it was so narrow that I think it forced me to write a specific book, which I think a lot more people like.

Um You know, on this one uh I would You know, I think that anybody who uh who kind of cares about their imprint on the world um

You know, this is kind of the book for that in that Yeah, and then I always tell the people at the firmness. When we're all retired, like w we're not gonna remember like Every deal that we did that was good or that we did that was bad or that we won or that we lost or

Yeah, how much money we made or any of that, but we're gonna remember like what it felt like to work there and what it felt like for the people who interacted with us and And like we're gonna know if we were proud of it or or like it's something we wanna forget. And that you know, that's what culture is really about. It's like Who are you? Like what do you do? Like You know What does it mean to know you?

Um And that Uh You know, I I think it's such an important thing.

Um, but people don't have the mechanics for that. Or or you know the I hadn't been able to find anything that I could read on that. So that that that's kinda the purpose of the book. And uh you know, I really like that it it also it I I would imagine and I I I haven't um

yet read the book, uh, but I'm very excited to that it that it provides examples that allow people to C principles. In action and sort of deduce. how those might apply to

to their own decisions. Whether that's say You know, read read Hastings, right at Netflix, or Netflix or rewinding the clock and going all the all the way back to uh Genghis Khan is of course uh I shouldn't say of course, but some someone that I've been really fascinated with for the last few years. Uh for many, many reasons. Um and uh has been portrayed a uh

In a lot of the Coverage. in a one sided, sort of one dimensional way. Very unfairly. Uh but the sort of the the scale and score. Very underrated uh and the vision of cultural inclusiveness that that you talk about in the book as it relates to that, uh I think it will be really eye-opening to people. And I'm excited about it for that reason. I know we're coming up on time. Uh be fun to to grip

you know, the grab a coffee in a round two some other time. Uh I still have a long list of of questions which uh which which we can get to some other time. Uh but uh let me let me ask just a couple of Really quick. Closing questions and Then uh bring this to a wrap. But the uh this question is is sometimes one that is difficult to answer, but I'll I'll lob it out there and see what we get. Uh and that is if you had a a a billboard, this is a metaphor, of course, but a a billboard

Anything you want. An image, a question, a word, a quote. But it allows you to get it. a convey something to billions of people. Uh N non non commercial. Uh what can you can you think of anything that you might put on

Such a billboard. So this is just really off the top of my head because I was listening to this song this morning. But um My friend Nas has this great line which is uh

Uh I know you think I'm Rich because of my diamond piece. But I've been rich since I started s finding peace. Hm.

And I think that's uh Well that that could be a podcast in and of itself. Just digging into that. I think my life is good because I've been Alright. Well find f finding peace. Anything else uh in terms of closing comments, suggestions, recommendations, asks of the audience?

That uh that that you'd like to Add before we before we close up this this first installment, at least? Yeah, I I think that what I would just say is um the book is really You know to enable you to

Do what you need to do kind of as a leader and as organization to be who you want to be. Um And as a leader, I think that's the most important thing. Wonderful. And that is what you do is who you are. You can find that anywhere books are sold. People can wave hello on the internet on Twitter at b Horowitz and we'll link to that and everything else uh in the show notes, including everything that we mentioned, so people listening can find that at Tim.blog forward slash podcast.

Ben, this has really been uh a lot of fun and very enlightening and enlivening, and I have uh all sorts of notes to follow up on. Uh for my own research and uh reading. And so thank you so much for taking the time. I really, really appreciate it. Oh yeah, no, thank you, and um I am looking forward to uh round two and the cup of coffee. Deal. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share

the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up. in the uh the world of the esoteric as I do, it could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite. of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn's Hello Monday. Hello Monday is a podcast. Hello Monday with Jesse Hemple is back for season two and the show is full of advice, practical, tactical advice that you can start using today. Each week, Jesse sits down with featured guests to investigate the role work plays in their lives. how it can be integrated into your life.

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