horowitz the hard thing about hard things

What I did mattered and would determine whether I would be a hero or a coward. … It taught me that being scared didn’t mean I was gutless. Here is an interesting point on fear that’s representative and telling of the book. “Circumstances may differ, but the deeper patterns and the lessons keep resonating.” Fear can be good. Horowitz walks you through his considerations, deliberations, thoughts, mistakes, regrets, difficulties. But that’s the difference between Ben’s book and most: he shows you what it’s really like to make hard decisions, without offering you a three-step formula. Just because there is no formula doesn’t mean things are hopeless. Ben, however, provides insight into what to do after you screw up. Most management books focus on how to avoid screwing up - or at least covering your ass if you do. The hard thing is waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat when the dream turns into a nightmare. The hard thing is getting people to communicate within the organization that you just designed. The hard thing isn’t setting up an organizational chart. The hard thing is when those “great people” develop a sense of entitlement and start demanding unreasonable things. The hard thing isn’t hiring great people. The hard thing is laying people off when you miss the big goal. The hard thing isn’t setting a big, hairy, audacious goal. The book is one of the best business books I’ve read in a long time. “There’s no recipe for leading a group of people out of trouble,” writes Ben Horowitz in The Hard Thing About Hard Things. There is no formula for dealing with complexity that’s always changing. You’re reading something with no practical value and you’re not really learning anything.

The problem with most business books is they present a formula for problems that ultimately have no formula.

Horowitz the hard thing about hard things