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Lesson 5: Managing Smart People Who Are Bad Employees | Ben Horowitz
Posted
October 13, 2025
October 13, 2025
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5:35Now PlayingWe’ve all heard the advice: “Hire people smarter than you.” But what happens when those people also bring big egos, erratic behavior, or outright defiance? Some of history’s most brilliant minds were also difficult to work with — think Picasso or Steve Jobs. Great talents can come with great disruption, but as investor Ben Horowitz explains, there are ways to harness their strengths while minimizing their chaos.
In this video lesson, Horowitz shares how to work with, rather than against, difficult but brilliant employees.
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About Ben Horowitz:
Ben Horowitz is a cofounder and general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The Hard Thing About Hard Things and What You Do Is Who You Are. He also created the a16z Cultural Leadership Fund to connect the greatest cultural leaders to the best new technology companies, and enable more young African Americans to enter the technology industry.
Prior to a16z, Ben was cofounder and CEO of Opsware (formerly Loudcloud), which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion in 2007, and was appointed vice president and general manager of Business Technology Optimization for Software at HP. Earlier, he was vice president and general manager of America Online’s E-commerce Platform division, where he oversaw development of the company’s flagship Shop@AOL service. Previously, Ben ran several product divisions at Netscape Communications. He also served as vice president of Netscape’s widely acclaimed Directory and Security product line. Before joining Netscape in July 1995, he held various senior product marketing positions at Lotus Development Corporation.
Ben has an MS and a BA in computer science from UCLA and Columbia University, respectively.
Ben serves on the board of Anyscale, Databricks, Mayvenn, NationBuilder, Navan, Okta ($OKTA), and UnitedMasters.
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