In his book “ The Hard Thing About Hard Things “, Ben Horowitz, a famous silicon valley VC offers practical wisdom on entrepreneurship and gives us a sneak peek into the struggles involved in running a startup. 

Drawing upon his personal experience as an entrepreneur, he gives us great insights into how an organisation functions and all the challenges that a CEO has to overcome on a daily basis.

The book is pretty straightforward and was an easy read. 

It was also surprisingly funny and insightful.

This post is a compilation of all the witty quotes from this book that made me laugh out loud.

If you are going to eat shit, don’t nibble

When we drove off the cliff, we left no skid marks

The reason that you have to fire your head of marketing is not because he sucks; it’s because you suck

Spend zero time on what you could have done, and devote all of your time on what you might do. Because in the end, nobody cares

Being too busy to train (employees) is the moral equivalent of being too hungry to eat

In all my years in business, I have yet to hear someone say, “I love corporate politics”

For any title level in a large organization, the talent on that level will eventually converge to the crappiest person with the title

If it makes people feel better, let them feel better. Titles cost nothing – On awarding fancy job titles

The only thing that prepares you to run a company is running a company

If you don’t like choosing between horrible and cataclysmic, don’t become CEO

Shit Sandwich – The basic idea is that people open up to feedback far more if you start by complimenting them (slice of bread number one), then you give them the difficult message (the shit), then wrap up by reminding them how much you value their strengths (slice of bread number two).

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