Ben Horowitz
Ben Horowitz is a leader in tech investment and the tech industry, who has been called the “CEO Whisperer” and the “Consigliere of Silicon Valley.” Ben is the Co-Founder and General Partner of Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm that invests in entrepreneurs building the next generation of leading technology companies. He 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, he was Co-Founder and CEO of Opsware, formerly Loudcloud, which was acquired by HP for $1.6 billion in 2007, and was appointed Vice President and General Manager of Business Technology Optimization for Software at HP. Ben is the bestselling author of The Hard Thing About Hard Things, which has been translated in over 16 languages. He is also author of Ben’s Blog, a very popular blog where he writes about his experiences and insights from his career as a computer science student, software engineer, leader, and investor.
Ben Horowitz Professional Experience / Academic History
Professional Experience
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Co-Founder and General Partner
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Vice President and General Manager of Business Technology Optimization for Software
Academic History
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M.S., Computer Science
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B.A., Computer Science
EARLY CAREER & AFFILIATIONS
Ben was VP and General Manager of America Online's Ecommerce platform division, where he oversaw development of the flagship Shop@AOL service.
He ran several product divisions at Netscape Communications, and served as VP of Netscape's widely acclaimed Directory and Security product line.
Prior to joining Netscape, he held various senior product marketing positions at Lotus Development Corporation.
He has backed startups like Medium, Databricks, Skype, Lyft, and Okta, among others.
He serves on the board of Anyscale, Caffeine, Databricks, Mayvenn, NationBuilder, Okta ($OKTA), Sisu, Tanium, TripActions, and UnitedMasters.
He has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the New Yorker, Fortune, the Economist, and Bloomberg Businessweek, among others.
RECOGNITION