Ben Horowitz Quotes

If there is such a thing as good leadership, it is to give a good example. I have to do so for all the Ikea employees.

Great leaders help their people see how they can directly impact the company's objectives and their own personal goals.

Set a clear, easy-to-understand vision for your company, and make it be a mission people believe in.

Keeping people fired up starts with having a really clear vision for what the company is aiming to do.

I think the most effective managers in the world have a team that wants to jump through brick walls for them.

'Lead with LUV' is the first book I've ever done that's just a pure conversation between my coauthor and me.

The true genius of a great manager is his or her ability to individualize. A great manager is one who understands how to trip each person's trigger.

You really just have to come in and build the spirit up of your team by working them everyday, showing them examples of what they've done and reinforce their work.

Basic philosophy, spirit and drive of an organization have far more to do with its relative achievements than do technological or economic resources, organizational structure, innovation and timing.

We would rather have our employees running our business.

The most challenging part of being CEO is communicating to 200,000 people what you want done.

Our emerging workforce is not interested in command-and-control leadership. They don't want to do things because I said so; they want to do things because they want to do them.

The employer generally gets the employees he deserves.

Stories are the single most powerful tool in a leader's toolkit.

I try to hire people I don't have to motivate. But I do motivate the people working with and for me.

The best leaders... almost without exception and at every level, are master users of stories and symbols.

If you want to get the most out of your men, give them a break! Don't make them work completely in the dark. If you do, they won't do a bit more than they have to. But if they comprehend, they'll work like mad.

In 13 years of doing my day job, I've learned a few things about motivating people. It's about setting a vision and, as long as everyone knows why they're doing what they're doing, you achieve that vision.

Directing, I get all kinds of inspiration. It's working with people. It's a lot more fun.

An approachable and authentic CEO is essential to fostering a high-performance, open communications culture.

Most people in an organization try very hard to do what the leadership wants them to do. That places a tremendous responsibility on leaders.

There is something only a CEO uniquely can do, which is set that tone, which can then capture the soul of the collective.

At my company, we have 300 employees spread across offices all over the world, and I send them all a voicemail each morning with a message from me about why our work is important and a reminder about one of our values. I call myself our company's 'chief spiritual officer.'

No one gave me a recipe for how to create company culture. I wish I had had one.

You need to decide that you're going to use a story to enlighten and inspire people in the modern day.