Ben Horowitz: evaluation

Transcript context

…Clearly, it's very difficult and painful to be a CEO, to be a founder. In spite of that so many people want to start companies. So many people dream of having their own company. Who is not right to start a company? What advice do you share with folks that are thinking about starting a company that may not understand just what they're about to get into? Yeah, so it's funny. So there's a couple of things. John Reed, who was the CEO of Citigroup when I started as CEO, said to me something I never forget. He said, "Ben, the only reason to start a company is because you have an irrational desire to do so, because it's not worth the money. " And I was like, "Wow, he doesn't even quantify how much money and this guy's running Citigroup." So he is a very numbers, banking guy and he didn't quantify it. And I remember when we sold LoudCloud for $1.6 billion, I remember thinking, "Wow, that wasn't worth the money whatsoever." So I think if you're doing it for the money, that's a very bad reason and it will be extremely difficult to get you an outcome. You really have to have an irrational desire to do something larger than yourself to improve the world in some way that somehow that is your purpose. And if you don't feel that, then you'll never get through it. It's just too many bad things happen along the way. So then how do you think of founders that are looking around for ideas that brainstorm, that look for market opportunities versus come from, "I have this a mission, I've got to do this thing in the world."…

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