Made a Summary of "The Hard Thing About Hard Things" By Ben Horowitz

I made this into an animated video, if you'd like to watch it, here's a link: https://youtu.be/yl_Q3E5d33UIf you enjoyed this please consider subscribing with this link. I create a lot of summaries: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfbLDMh6uGOZePAfqqjVZ-g?sub_confirmation=1If you're interested here's a Playlist of over 60 book summaries I've created: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOImyOGN9UE&list=PLaNTB6oQAa0AYuul0tqUscg1ZLj_arZgaIf you're prefer to just read, here's the video script...The Hard Thing about Hard Things by Ben HorowitzWhat the book is aboutIn ‘The Hard Thing about Hard Things’, Ben Horowitz talks about the hard core rules he learnt in life and shares his tips on how to build a successful, high-tech company. Quoting Horowitz from the book, ‘There’s no recipe for building a high-tech company; there’s no recipe for leading a group of people out of trouble; there’s no recipe for making a series of hit songs; there’s no recipe for playing NFL quarterback; there’s no recipe for running for president; and there’s no recipe for motivating teams when your business has turned to crap. That’s the hard thing about hard things — there is no formula for dealing with them.’ If you’re interested in this book you can get 2 audiobooks for free with a trial of audible using the link in the description of this video. Here is a summary of the book.Chapter 1, 2 and 3In the first chapter of the book, Horowitz talks about his childhood and family background along with his take on communism and capitalism. He also discusses the importance of seeing things from different perspectives in a business in order to utilize good opportunities and combat threats. The second chapter talks about how having a can-do attitude and willingness to survive in all sorts of hardships by discussing the story of his business venture LoudCloud and how he turned it into Opsware, another of his business ventures. Horowitz continues to talk about the challenges he faced while running Opsware in the third chapter as well as the significance of being emotionally invested in your business to make it successful.Chapter 4, 5 and 6The fourth chapter discusses how a CEO of a company needs to be sure of making his business successful and instead of playing the odds, must always find the answer and solutions to the problems faced by it. In the next chapter, Horowitz talks about the importance of creating a good work environment in a company and taking care of the people to ensure the team works effectively and efficiently towards the company’s goals. The next thing a CEO should worry about is to take care to create good quality products to build loyal customers and then worry about managing the profits. The sixth chapter discusses how most organizations focus on power play and office politics, which does not turn out in favor of the company, and how organizations must work on minimizing politics within the company to make it successful. He also talks about 4 rules that make business successful: Always hire a team whose ambitions complement those of the company. Maintain strict rules and policies that relate to performance evaluations, organizational design, compensation and promotions. The CEO should always promote good employees after measuring their performance in an unbiased manner. Lastly, there must always be direct meetings between managers and employees to ensure good ideas and pressing issues are brought into the limelight. It also discusses how good employees must be trained effectively so their performance improves and they strive better for excellence.Chapter 7, 8 and 9The 7th chapter discusses how a CEO of a company must focus entirely on what to do right and how to do so instead of being concerned about the things that are wrong in the company. An important way to do so is to be aware of one’s emotions as a CEO. He/she should master how to keep calm. As Horowitz writes in the book, “By far the most difficult skill I learned as CEO was the ability to manage my own psychology… The first rule of the CEO psychological meltdown is don’t talk about the psychological meltdown.” The next chapter once again discusses that there is no one rule to be successful in life and one has to be courageous and gritty to make his/ her business venture a massive success. The final chapter of the book shares Horowitz’s personal story on how he chose to work for HP while aspiring to do business of his own, which then led him to start his own company. He then advises the readers to understand that the end to something may be the beginning of something else so one must not give up on his/ her aspirations. This book repeatedly talks about the hard things in life and how one should always deal with the hard issues and facts in life directly instead of giving up because the latter is never the solution. The author also emphasizes on the need for having mentors.Hope this is useful and you enjoyed it. Have a great day! see hubwealthy.com/wealthy