The Struggle is when you wonder why you started the company in the first place. The Struggle is when people ask you why you don’t quit and you don’t … - Ben Horowitz

I managed the team to a set of numbers that did not fully capture what I wanted. I wanted a great product that customers would love with high quality and on time — in that order. Unfortunately, the metrics that I set did not capture those priorities. At a basic level, metrics are incentives. By measuring quality, features, and schedule and discussing them at every staff meeting, my people focused intensely on those metrics to the exclusion of other goals. The metrics did not describe the real goals and I distracted the team as a result.

At the time of any given decision, the CEO will generally have less than 10 percent of the information typically present in the post hoc Harvard Business School case study.

Why did so few startup advisers and venture capitalists have any experience starting companies? As these thoughts rolled around in my head, I sent Marc Andreessen an instant message: “We ought to start a venture capital firm. Our motto for general partners would be ‘some experience required’ as in some experience in founding and running companies is required to advise people who are founding and running companies.” To my surprise, he replied, “I was thinking the same thing.