Ben Horowitz is an American businessman, investor, blogger, and author. He is a
high technology entrepreneur and co-founder and general partner along
with Marc Andreessen of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He
co-founded and served as president and chief executive officer of the
enterprise software company Opsware, which Hewlett-Packard acquired for $1.6
billion in cash in July 2007. Horowitz is the author of The Hard Thing About
Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers. In the book,
published on March 4, 2014 by HarperCollins, Horowitz offers advice on
building and running a startup. Education and early career
Horowitz earned a BA in Computer Science from Columbia University in 1988 and an
MS in Computer Science from UCLA in 1990.
After UCLA, he began his career as an engineer at Silicon Graphics in the
early 1990s. In 1995, Horowitz joined Marc Andreessen at Netscape as one of
Netscape’s first product managers. He was rapidly promoted to Vice President
and General Manager and was responsible for much of the Netscape Server product
line, including 300+ people and $100M+ in revenue. After Netscape was acquired
by AOL in 1998, Horowitz served as Vice President of AOL’s eCommerce Division.
Loudcloud and Opsware In September 1999, Horowitz cofounded
Loudcloud with Marc Andreessen, Tim Howes, and In Sik Rhee. Loudcloud
offered infrastructure and application hosting services to enterprise and
Internet customers such as Ford Motor Company, Nike, Inc., Gannett Company,
News Corporation, the United States Army and other large organizations. Horowitz
took Loudcloud public on March 9, 2001. In June 2002, Horowitz began a
transformation of Loudcloud into Opsware, an enterprise software company.
He took the first step by selling Loudcloud's core managed services
business to Electronic Data Systems for $63.5 million in cash. This transaction
transferred 100% of Loudcloud's revenue to EDS while the company was publicly
traded on NASDAQ. Beginning with EDS as its first enterprise software customer,
Horowitz grew Opsware to hundreds of enterprise customers, over $100 million
in annual revenue, and 550 employees. In July 2007, Horowitz sold Opsware to
Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion in cash.
Horowitz was Loudcloud’s and Opsware’s President and Chief Executive Officer
for the entire history of the company. Along the way, shares of Opsware IPO'ed
at $6, sank to $0.35 per share at its nadir and traded at $14.25 a share at
the time of its sale to HP. Following the sale of Opsware to
Hewlett-Packard, Horowitz then spent one year at Hewlett-Packard as Vice
President and General Manager in HP Software with responsibility for 3,000
employees and $2.8 billion in annual revenue.
Andreessen Horowitz On July 6, 2009, Horowitz and Andreessen
launched Andreessen Horowitz, to invest in and advise both early-stage startups
and more established growth companies in high technology. Andreessen Horowitz
began with an initial capitalization of $300 million and within three years had
$2.7 billion under management across three funds. Andreessen Horowitz has
invested in over 150 companies in mobile, gaming, social media, ecommerce,
education and enterprise IT. The firms in which Andreessen Horowitz has
invested include Facebook, Foursquare, GitHub, Pinterest, and Twitter.
On September 1, 2009, an investor group including Andreessen Horowitz announced
it had acquired a majority stake in Skype for $2.75 billion, a move that was
considered risky at the time. Horowitz also joined Skype's board. The deal paid
off when Skype was sold to Microsoft in May 2011 for $8.5 billion. Andreessen
and Horowitz made personal investments in headset maker Jawbone in 2006; the
firm announced a $49 million investment in Jawbone in March 2011.
Horowitz's blog on the Andreessen Horowitz web site is syndicated to over
10 million readers, is considered required reading for Silicon Valley
entrepreneurs, and was named one of “40 Entrepreneur Blogs You Should Be
Reading” in 2011. The blog is particularly noted for its persistent
use of rap lyrics to complement its business advice. Horowitz's book The
Hard Thing About Hard Things is based on his blog posts.
Horowitz and Andreessen were ranked no. 6 on Vanity Fair’s 2011 New
Establishment List, no. 1 on CNET’s 2011 most influential investors list and no.
21 and no. 2, respectively, on the 2012 Forbes Midas List of Tech’s Top
Investors. Personal life
Horowitz was born in London, England and was raised in Berkeley, California, the
son of Elissa Krauthamer and conservative writer and policy advocate
David Horowitz. He lives in Silicon Valley with his wife, Felicia Wiley
Horowitz, and two daughters and a son. He donates his time to various
organizations that include the American Jewish World Service, Columbia
University, Stanford Hospital, Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund, Via Ball,
and Via Rehabilitation. In April 2012, Horowitz along with Andreessen Horowitz
General Partners Marc Andreessen, Peter Levine, Jeff Jordan, John O’Farrell and
Scott Weiss pledged to give half of their lifetime income from venture
capital to charity. References
External links Ben's Blog
Ben Horowitz's profile on Crunchbase Marc Andreessen's blog entry announcing
the formation of Andreessen Horowitz Andreessen Horowitz Website