The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

The advice offered by Horowitz in The Hard Thing About Hard Things should be examined within the historical context of the tech boom and bust of the 1990s. The Internet was a new phenomenon, and its potential as a global sales platform was still in the early experimental phase. Many felt that exponential growth was possible. Consequently, as a CEO, Horowitz was constantly concerned about accurately predicting how big his company would grow. The concept of scalability became central to his strategies. Horowitz talks about the size of a company’s various offices and how often the space needs to be expanded. He speculates about the venture capital needed to fuel growth. Nowhere in the book does he discuss maintaining the status quo; during such volatile times, innovation is prized.

Horowitz’s anxiety about accurately projecting growth leads him to over-project what he will need in a management team three years down the road. While startups tend to operate in a perpetual state of flux, those engaged in high-tech activities carry this tendency to the extreme. He says, “In the technology game, tomorrow looks nothing like today. If you survive long enough to see tomorrow, it may bring you the answer that seems so impossible today” (63).