{"id":30812,"date":"2021-04-03T13:45:53","date_gmt":"2021-04-03T17:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=30812"},"modified":"2021-04-03T14:04:02","modified_gmt":"2021-04-03T18:04:02","slug":"andreessen-horowitz-venture-capital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/andreessen-horowitz-venture-capital\/","title":{"rendered":"The Founding of Andreessen Horowitz Venture Capital"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How did Ben Horowitz go from managing software companies to starting the venture capital<\/a> firm Andreessen Horowitz? Why was the company so successful? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ben Horowitz, author of The Hard Thing About Hard Things<\/a><\/em>, didn’t know what to do after he sold Opsware in 2007. He wanted a change of career but didn’t want to waste all the knowledge he gained as a CEO. His solution was to start a venture capital firm to help entrepreneurs realize their dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep reading to learn more about the Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Ben Horowitz Starts Venture Capital Firm<\/strong> Andreessen Horowitz<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After selling Opsware in 2007, Ben spent a year working at HP thinking about what to do next. He\u2019d now gone through a company\u2019s entire life cycle, from founding to going public to selling, and he felt it was time to retire from operating a business. But he\u2019d learned so much, and not using this knowledge seemed like a waste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then he had an idea, which would eventually become the Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm. He wanted to help other entrepreneurs through the same struggles he faced. Why didn\u2019t every founder know the mean score of a CEO was 22? Why did every founder seemingly have to struggle alone to hire, fire, promote, and scale?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Venture capitalists, the investors of companies, were theoretically supposed to help founders through their struggles. But in reality, they often saw founders simply as inexperienced beginners to be replaced by professional management as soon as possible. Ben faced this personally when raising money for Loudcloud\u2014an investor asked when they\u2019d be bringing in a \u201creal CEO,\u201d \u201csomeone who knows what they\u2019re doing.\u201d He was initially crestfallen to hear this, but he learned the ropes and became a competent CEO. Now, coming out of Opsware, he wanted to help other entrepreneurs get better too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A New Kind of Firm<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The way he thought he could best achieve this vision was through a new kind of venture capital firm that placed the entrepreneur first<\/strong>. He wanted to solve the classic problems of venture capital firms then:<\/p>\n\n\n\n