Management purely by numbers is sort of like painting by numbers — it’s strictly for amateurs. - Ben Horowitz

MANAGING STRICTLY BY NUMBERS IS LIKE PAINTING BY NUMBERS

Marc and I eventually became friends; we’ve been friends and business partners ever since. People often ask me how we’ve managed to work effectively across three companies over eighteen years. Most business relationships either become too tense to tolerate or not tense enough to be productive after a while. Either people challenge each other to the point where they don’t like each other or they become complacent about each other’s feedback and no longer benefit from the relationship. With Marc and me, even after eighteen years, he upsets me almost every day by finding something wrong in my thinking, and I do the same for him. It works.

Good product managers anticipate the serious product flaws and build real solutions. Bad product managers put out fires all day.

move with precision and follow his exact plan; there was no room for individual creativity outside the core mission.