Ben Horowitz Quotes

When I find an employee who turns out to be wrong for the job, I feel it is my fault because I made the decision to hire him.

Selection of crews is always been somewhat of a mystery.

The service leaders hire one out of 50 applicants, sometimes one out of 100, but they're very, very careful. You can't afford not to be extremely choosy when you hire.

It's getting the right person that's the challenge.

Selecting the right person for the right job is the largest part of coaching.

Sure, it's fun to chat with people with interesting backgrounds who seem to have a passion for your company. But a job interview is not a friendly chat. You need to determine whether candidates, can they really do the job. So ask them to prove it.

No matter how you hire, ensuring the systems are in place to manage the process will be critical in allowing you to find the right people to carry the standards you set. Don't neglect that duty!

I've never really hired anybody that people thought I should hire.

Our hiring is almost completely built around just going through someone's life story, and we look for moments when they had to make important decisions, and we go deep on those.

When there are hiring decisions and promotion decisions to be made, people are hungry for data.

Another reform, involves new screening tests for all applicants that include, and this is so important, especially if you get the right people. And we will get the right people.

Recruiting is hard. It's just finding the needles in the haystack. You can't know enough in a one-hour interview. So, in the end, it's ultimately based on your gut. How do I feel about this person? What are they like when they're challenged? I ask everybody that: 'Why are you here?' The answers themselves are not what you're looking for. It's the meta-data.

The toughest are people mistakes, when you put the wrong person in a job. Sometimes you're too slow to move them out. Or not getting the right people involved to solve a problem, or doing something out of anger; you learn, just don't do that. But I'd have to say the Whale was one of them, and I would also have to put Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual on the list at this point.

I've never gone through an audition process or anything. In most of my decisions like that, I just kind of feel it out: You know, do I feel comfortable with this person?

If we get the right people in the right job we've won the game.

I don't believe in mistakes. Never have. I believe that there are a multitude of paths before us and it's just a matter of which way we walk home. I don't believe in regret. If you regret things about your life, than I'll bet that you're not paying attention. Regret is just imagining that you know what would have happened if you took that job in California or married your high-school sweetheart or just looked one more time before you stepped out into the street ... or didn't. But you don't know; you can't possibly know.

Be willing to make bold decisions and be willing to make glorious mistakes. Learn from your mistakes, but you've got to be willing to make them first.

My job is a decision-making job, and as a result, I make a lot of decisions.

The most common source of mistakes in management decisions is the emphasis on finding the right answer rather than the right question.

Getting the right people in the right jobs is a lot more important than developing a strategy.

You chose us. Now we have to choose you.

Most of the best hires that I've made in my entire life have never done that thing before.

We are all far less rational in our decision-making than standard economic theory assumes. Our irrational behaviors are neither random nor senseless: they are systematic and predictable. We all make the same types of mistakes over and over, because of the basic wiring of our brains.

What characteristics do I look for when hiring somebody? That's one of the questions I ask when interviewing. I want to know what kind of people they would hire.

My friend Terry says that when you need to make a decision, in your work or otherwise, and you don’t know what to do, just do one thing or the other, because the worst that can happen is that you will have made a terrible mistake.