Foundation — Season 1, Episode 23: Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz

Episode synopsis

Kevin Rose sits down with Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Opsware and General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz The latest episode of my Foundation video series comes to you filmed live from the Google Ventures Founder & CEO Summit last week. I had the opportunity to sit down with Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Opsware and now General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Enjoy! Ben shares how he got his start as an intern at Silicon Graphics, and went on to found and build Opsware into a billion dollar company. He offers candid advice for entrepreneurs on the importance of establishing a thoughtful communication architecture, how to hire for scale, and the secret to getting the most out of board meetings. He also reveals what he looks for in a pitch: Above all else, he asks "does the founder have the courage to build the company?" Ben's advice for CEOs: "Being nice to everybody all the time or never telling them what's wrong turns out to be a really dangerous thing. It's really important in general to be giving feedback always. Negative feedback, not just about people, but about what's wrong in the company is critically important."

More episodes from Season 1

• E1Jack Dorsey
• E2Jeff Smith of Smule, Inc.
• E3Philip Rosedale of SecondLife
• E4Tony Conrad of About.me
• E5Brian Wong of Kiip.me
• E6Jesse Jacobs of Samovar Tea Lounge
• E7Chris Sacca of Lowercase Capital
• E8Philip Rosedale of SecondLife
• E9Jason Goldberg of Fab.com
• E10Dennis Crowley of Foursquare
• E11John Borthwick of Betaworks
• E12Leah Busque of TaskRabbit