Wartime CEO neither indulges consensus building nor tolerates disagreements. Peacetime CEO sets big, hairy, audacious goals. Wartime CEO is too busy … - Ben Horowitz

Wartime CEO is too busy fighting the enemy to read management books written by consultants who have never managed a fruit stand.

Wartime CEO is too busy fighting the enemy to read management books written by consultants who have never managed a fruit stand. Peacetime

The primary thing that any technology startup must do is build a product that’s at least ten times better at

The very next day I informed the head of Sales Engineering and the head of Customer Support that they would be switching jobs. I explained that, like Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris, they would keep their minds, but get new bodies. Permanently. Their initial reactions were not unlike the remake where Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis both scream in horror.

Once inside AOL, I was assigned to run the e-commerce platform and Marc became the chief technology officer. After a few months, it became apparent to both of us that AOL saw itself as more of a media company than a technology company. Technology enabled great new media projects, but the strategy was a media strategy and the top executive, Bob Pittman, was a genius media executive. Media companies focused on things like creating great stories whereas technology companies focused on creating a better way of doing things. We began to think about new ideas and about forming a new company.