Recommendations you can check.
by Ben Horowitz, 2014
Who uses, recommends or left The Hard Thing About Hard Things, in their own words: each a verbatim quote with a link to where it was said.
3 people
Zero To One, Hard Thing about Hard Things, High Growth Handbook, AI Superpowers
The draft reading list for his Network School, in the “Tech” section.
2025-02-02·balajis.com ↗
Building a company is hard. Gut-wrenchingly hard. There are no short cuts to building a billion-dollar-plus business. In this book, Ben Horowitz recounts the insane story of how his company that should have failed dozens of times came back from the brink over and over again. He shares specific advice for handling the tough situations a founder of a high growth business will face. The longer I'm working on startups as a founder, the more helpful this book has been.
His continuously-updated books page (first published 2012-12-16, last updated 2020-10-28), where every book he reads gets a 1-10 rating and a "Why Read it" note. Book links carry his Amazon affiliate tag.
2020-10-28·jasonevanish.com ↗
If you want all the bad words, Ben’s book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Pointing Ferriss to his business partner’s book for the full story of their early arguments.
2018-01-01·tim.blog ↗
Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.
The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.
A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.
What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:
Stripes mean the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no shading.