Articles by Ben Horowitz
Titles and PromotionsBen describes why job leveling is almost always necessary, the inherent risks with it (including the law of crappy people), and how to manage those risks with a strong promotion process. • Job titles become important for two reasons: employees need them for future jobs, and as companies grow, titles provide a shorthand for roles. • However, without proper management, titles can lead to issues like the Peter Principle and the Law of Crappy People, where incompetent people get promoted. The best way to mitigate these issues is through a disciplined promotion process, similar to how martial arts dojos promote students. • The promotion process should have clear definitions of skills needed at each level and compare candidates to existing employees at that level. • Ben reviews Meta's approach, where Zuckerberg gives lower titles to ensure fairness. Zuckerberg's approach forces managers to understand the leveling system, which boosts morale. Meta misses out on some candidates due to lower titles, but they may not be the right fit anyway. • Ultimately, a disciplined promotion process is more important than the actual titles given. It avoids internal inequities that can obsess employees.
Why I Did Not Go To JailBen shares a story on how separate his CFO and GC in his company's org chart saved him from going to jail. The broader implication is to be thoughtful about the relationship between reporting structure of departments and competing metrics. When one department reports in to another, the more likely it is that the metrics of the lower department will be subservient to the metrics of the higher department.
- Through the Looking Glass: Hiring Sales People
Many technical founders make the mistake of applying strategies that worked for building their engineering team to the sales hiring process, but this does not work well because sales people are different from engineers. In hiring sales people, it is important to focus on personality traits, such as courage, competitiveness, hunger, and intelligence. Screening sales reps from other companies requires a different approach to hiring engineers, as selling a winning product requires less skill than selling a losing one. The cost of making a hiring mistake is also different between engineering and sales, with engineering organizations experiencing productivity and technical debt issues, while sales organizations suffer less long-term debt or fast growth issues. Ultimately, applying engineering hiring techniques to a sales organization is not effective and can lead to the opposite of the desired outcome.
- How to Ruin Your Company with One Bad Process
Ben argues that founders can harm their businesses by mishandling the budgeting process. This can happen when they set goals without constraints, leading to departments leaders "gaming" the budgeting process. In this scenario, managers may try to increase the scope of the goals, make unrealistic demands, or socialize their ideas and newly found money with their teams, which can create a culture of chaos and lead to the company's downfall. Instead, Ben recommends to set clear financial targets and hold the team accountable for meeting them, and to be transparent about the budget and its limitations. It is also important to keep in mind that the budget is not a fixed plan, but rather a tool for tracking progress and making adjustments as needed.
- Good Group Product Manager / Dead Group Product Manager
Ben & David cover: • GPM vs. Sr. PM role • Appropriate Level of Paranoia • Setting clear objectives and giving clear feedback • Defining a good PM job • Working with executives • Fitting in with the organization
- Hiring Executives: If You’ve Never Done the Job, How Do You Hire Somebody Good?
Ben covers 4 steps: creating the job profile, interviewing, referencing, and making a decision. He dives the deepest into the interview section, with a variety of example interview questions.
- Titles and Promotions
Ben describes why job leveling is almost always necessary, the inherent risks with it (including the law of crappy people), and how to manage those risks with a strong promotion process. • Job titles become important for two reasons: employees need them for future jobs, and as companies grow, titles provide a shorthand for roles. • However, without proper management, titles can lead to issues like the Peter Principle and the Law of Crappy People, where incompetent people get promoted. The best way to mitigate these issues is through a disciplined promotion process, similar to how martial arts dojos promote students. • The promotion process should have clear definitions of skills needed at each level and compare candidates to existing employees at that level. • Ben reviews Meta's approach, where Zuckerberg gives lower titles to ensure fairness. Zuckerberg's approach forces managers to understand the leveling system, which boosts morale. Meta misses out on some candidates due to lower titles, but they may not be the right fit anyway. • Ultimately, a disciplined promotion process is more important than the actual titles given. It avoids internal inequities that can obsess employees.