The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz | with guest Dr. Minshad Ali Ansari

0:01Dr. Minshad Ali Ansari:Welcome to Business Book Club, the show where top entrepreneurs break down the most powerful insights from the world's best business books. I'm your host, Sam Brown, and today we're diving into The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz. With over a million copies sold, it's considered the definitive manual for startup founders facing impossible decisions. And it's not theory. It's the raw story of how Ben Horowitz built, nearly lost, and ultimately sold his company for$1.6 billion. It explains what it really takes to run a company when nothing is going according to plan. And today, we'll break down three of Ben's hardest-won lessons that you won't find in any MBA syllabus, and why they could make or break your startup.

0:47Dr. Minshad Ali Ansari:But who is Ben? He was the co-founder and CEO of LoudCloud, one of the pioneering cloud companies of the early 2000s. After navigating near bankruptcy and a brutal tech crash, he led LoudCloud to a successful IPO and eventual sale to HP. But you're more likely familiar with his more recent role as the co-founder of Andresen Horowitz, one of Silicon Valley's most influential venture capital firms backing giants like Airbnb, Facebook, and Slack. And joining me today is Dr. Minshed. He's the CEO and founder of Bionema Group, a UK-based ag tech working on biological solutions to crop protection. He's bootstrapped Bionema from scratch, built award-winning technologies, and now leads the charge to replace chemicals with nature-based alternatives in agriculture.

1:35Dr.

1:36Dr. Minshad Ali Ansari:Minshad, amazing to have you on the podcast. Why did you choose The Hard Thing About Hard Things as the most impactful book that you've read?

1:42unknown host:I have read more than 100 books now, but I think this one is on the top. Why? Because it's 100 % resonate exactly where I am today. What do you mean by it resonates where you are today? In my case, it's very sad that in Indian villas, when there is no electricity, no roads and no schools, the area where I born before the 1970s, and that was time I had only one passion, to get some education. This is a very horror story is that you are walking in the mud and reaching to your school every day, taking your cloth out and crossing the river. But you have a passion to reach your school and learn something.

2:24unknown host:Not everybody basically can do that one. So I have gone through numerous difficult times. And I think the only thing was the persistence. Always I thought that let's do it. Let's do it. I will be better tomorrow. until now today. If I look back yesterday, I'm better today. I think that's driving me all the time. Many people ask this one, and I always say that, look, I'm better than yesterday. Let's dive into some of these lessons that you brought from the book.

2:52Dr. Minshad Ali Ansari:What is the first lesson? There is no playbook for the hard things. Tell me more about the hard things. What is meant by hard things, and why are they so difficult to write a playbook for them?

3:04unknown host:By far, the most difficult skill I learned the ability to manage my own psychology. Coming from academia, you know, you are a researcher and then you become entrepreneur. It's a two different world. And people today still do not have a complete understanding. Is that an academic can become an entrepreneur? Yes, it can. But the chances of failing is more than 99%. There was a moment I doubt everything. What I was doing, I was saying, am I doing right? But I keep doing this one. I'm a religious person as well. So I believe in God and God always said that, keep doing. You will get the fruit at the end of your journey.

3:50unknown host:So that's basically driving me to this point today. It's very difficult. Unfortunately, we are not covering all those times, but all key points are so important. So our touching the heart is that how entrepreneurs lose their business without having these knowledge in their earliest starting point, basically. They learn over the time.

4:13Dr. Minshad Ali Ansari:One of the main examples that Ben gives in the book of the hard things that he couldn't have a playbook for is when he had to lay off a large portion of his team and while doing so had to motivate the remaining team. It gives other examples like fundraising, firing people that you're friends with. They're all kind of unique and ambiguous problems. Given that there's no playbook for a lot of these type of unique problems, what tips have you taken from the book to be able to apply for yourself?

4:43unknown host:When Bionema faced over 50 investor rejection, and this was exactly happened with band life as well. I didn't pivot. I persisted. And I think I'm a man of persistence, actually, all the time. So I persisted, persisted, persisted. The building a deep tech biological company meant navigating uncertainty, creating the playbook as we went. So it was not something like that, OK, you put the things here and then you certainly got something. It's a serious roadmap. And there is no way that you can do it very quickly, that there is a timeline, there is a process, there is a test. So I think it is funny enough that it's correlating with Ben, most of his lesson with my lesson, actually.

5:31Dr. Minshad Ali Ansari:With those 50 rejections that you had with these VCs, who were you being rejected from?

5:36unknown host:I think the journey, every entrepreneur starts raising investment and they start reaching to everyone. I think that's another wrong thing as well, which I learned. It has to be a selected one. It has to be a strategic one who like your mission, who like your vision and who resonate what you are doing. So I think the 50 rejection was some of them were simply not relevant to my businesses. But this is the figure a few years before. Now it has been 100 rejection. And now I'm learning is how to approach them. And the some of them coming back now, I say, look, you reach out to, you know, three years before where you are.

6:12unknown host:And we want to see that if we can invest. They are also looking for a best company. They don't have any clear roadmap where they can go and find the company who is basically going to make their invest 10 times. Likewise, we are looking for investors who basically not only are investing, but they're aligned with our vision and mission so that we can basically build a concrete relationship. And that relationship then lead to half a billion dollar company, which we are aiming for the next five to 10 years. So what do you have for lesson number two?

6:45Dr. Minshad Ali Ansari:Be the wartime CEO. In the book, Ben talks a lot about being either a peacetime CEO or being a wartime CEO. Can you tell us the difference between the two?

6:54unknown host:In a crisis situation, leader must switch from consensus building to rapid, higher-stake decisions. Ben calls this being a wartime CEO. Focus, urgent, and decisive. Again, I'm coming from academia. There is no concept of a leadership, and they're making huge mistake. They're just teaching. Now, when he's talking about without leadership, your business will fail. Without leadership, each decision will fail. So the CEO is one of the top guy who must make a decision which saved the organization. Now, the number of examples I have actually where employee attempt to force a leadership change, I had to act immediately.

7:42unknown host:Somehow, They are now disaligned with your vision and mission, and they want to have some change without even informing you. It was a defined moment, one that tested my resolve. To protect the mission, vision, the team, and our investor, I made the hard but very necessary calls to solve that crisis.

8:05Dr. Minshad Ali Ansari:What happened and what did you do to resolve it?

8:07unknown host:Sam, this is something I have been witnessing in the entrepreneurial community as well. This is not something I'm telling very unique. This has been happening as we speak. So when you are coming from academia, people think that you can't do business. They have a perception that you can't make a decision. And I think somehow they're right. But over the time, a guy coming from academia and learning for 10 years, come on, He's not the same guy now after 10 years. So it might be true in early days, you know, year one, year two, but not in after 10 years when he has gone through several trainings, several meetings, several, all those kinds of things.

8:48unknown host:He has become better than MBA because he has a practical knowledge now. And you try to force him with a new guys, how long the new guys is going to learn. That's a big question mark. And many companies has gone bankrupt. Many company has gone into administration just because of this, that people think that you can't do as a CEO job, we are going to bring other. I think, I mean, you know the Facebook, there are many examples where the CEOs were, or majority of the shareholders were removed from the business. And later on, they brought it back. And in my case, because of some sensitivity, we will not go more detail, but this does happen, which jeopardize whole your life, your career, your business.

9:34unknown host:just because somebody have a different thinking. So the business alignment is very important. Otherwise, you are going to lose everything.

9:42Dr. Minshad Ali Ansari:Ben talks about this in the book, doesn't he? That when it's wartime, he says you need to make the decisions because essentially the fate of the company does rest on your shoulders at that point. And you are the person who has the most context. The CMO will have lots of information about the marketing. The head of product will have loads of information about product. The CFO will know everything there is to know about the finance. But you as the CEO will be able to connect the dots better than anyone because you have to be across it all. Absolutely.

10:05unknown host:Connecting the dot and also knowing absolutely all those areas. So I have seen that CFO might be very good in finance, but then he's lacking all those areas. There's the leadership, the negotiation, the investment, the communication, the knowledge. In my case, I don't see that Ben was a tech guy, but I'm coming from the technology guy. So I know what the science look like and how I can take the science into a practicality. So I know a better way, if I can put it like that, is that I know the science and I know the business as well. If a CEO has just a business mind and he's lacking completely science, mainly in the tech business, that will be a total disaster.

10:48Dr. Minshad Ali Ansari:Recently, I spoke to an AI investor and they were saying that they see that their winning formula of companies that have returned really well on their investments have been people who have co-founders, who have one person who has a very deep knowledge on the technical side of things, and they've been a researcher and academic, and they have years and years of experience, then the other person needs to understand the industry and the business side of things. If you are the same person, then fantastic. But they see that that is the winning combination, having those two areas.

11:16unknown host:100 % correct. Sometimes you do find, but then you have only eight hours, even though you have a knowledge, but your timeline is great. And that's where basically CEO like me and others, they have 112 hours, more than 100 hours they're working weekly because they try to do everything. And they sometimes try to do everything is not good. But what to do? Because you are not in the stage where you can hire multiple people and pay their salary. So multitasking is not a good idea, but you are not doing by your choice, actually. You're doing by force. That's just the nature of startups, for one, and definitely the nature of wartime.

11:54unknown host:And become the wartime means you need your arsenal to win the battle. That's what Ben is talking about. Do everything decisive, urgently take the decision, be very focused, not doing a multiple task or multiple products in development, which I have been doing as well. So in early days, we were building a lot of technology. But after four or five years, we now very much concentrate, laser focus. So we're focusing on to the product one or two. those are basically on the top and the remaining one become the pipeline product actually, not focusing on altogether.

12:27Dr. Minshad Ali Ansari:Your headline for this section was, be the wartime CEO. And I think that you've phrased it like this because you have a natural predisposition to be the peacetime CEO, but you realize the value in now becoming the wartime CEO. If you have maybe a natural predisposition to be the wartime CEO, then maybe this section would have been called, be the peacetime CEO, because you need the ability to have both skill sets if you're going to succeed in ups and downs of a normal startup journey.

12:53unknown host:And you see the example like Facebook, they also came from very tech business to become a CEO. So those have basically been successful. And many other examples where a CEO has just a leadership quality. The disaster happens sometime when the coordination is not happening. Probably, you know, the 95 % business collapse within five years. So the main reason is that the disalignment within the sea level, that's basically become a toxic culture and that leads to the derailing in administration. What do you have for lesson number three? Hire for strength, not lack of weaknesses. What does that mean to you?

13:35unknown host:So safe means hiring anyone. You just advertise, have some bunch of CVs, and you select one of the candidates without doing deep due diligence. And I did the safe hire a few times, and that was a link to a disaster.

13:50Dr. Minshad Ali Ansari:I think that's a learning curve that every entrepreneur goes through. No matter how many books you read, no matter how many people tell you, you should put more work into due diligence, it'll be better in the long run. Every entrepreneur just goes through it and ends up stumbling at hiring.

14:04unknown host:due diligence and then alignments. So the matching that person vision and mission is the same. If the person had a hidden mission and vision, that's where the problem happened. Because you don't know, make sure that you have a guy who is basically going to 100 % align. If that happened, these differences between the hiring solid and a spectacular candidate is 10x. And I have seen that one. So if I compare with the previous and now, those are there. There are many other elements, you have providing your employee ownership, providing them more incentive. I think those will basically lead them to support the business.

14:46unknown host:Otherwise, every few months you are looking for a different hire. Majority of the things happen when the candidates are not basically aligned to the business mission and objectives.

14:58Dr. Minshad Ali Ansari:You can't really appreciate that there is so much difference. So I think what you said was the difference between hiring a solid and a spectacular candidate is 10x. The thing is, hey, you're only probably paying them 20 % more, 30 % more. A lot of times people think like, oh, I don't have the money, especially when you're a startup. I don't have the money to invest that amount extra in an exceptional person. I think there's two parts of the problem. One is that they don't necessarily have the money. The second thing is it's really hard to find those people. So you don't want to feel like you're paying way over the market average and then end up getting an average person anyway.

15:28Dr. Minshad Ali Ansari:So you do need to put all the due diligence. You need to go through the extra rounds of actual interviews, like what you said, get to the heart of what their vision and their motivations and their mission personally is so that it can make sure you're aligned. And then you have to be able to just be comfortable enough to commit the money to be able to spend on them. It's a difficult one to do.

15:45unknown host:To clarify, in the bionymarly days, I hired generalistic. So those are the guy 50 % match to the job. But sometimes you need a specialist, for example, scientists for doing the R &D work. But within scientists, you have a specialist area as well. Then you have a commercial role. You have a sales role. Not everybody can brought to the business and made basically like CEO and others. CEO has a different characteristic. So the CEO can be made or leadership can be made. But sales team has to be based on experience. So the You are in the field for the last 10 years. You have made already several millions and you are basically showing credibility before basically you are joining the next job.

16:26unknown host:And that mistake happened. And you are absolutely right, is that most of the entrepreneurs, they don't have money. But here I have a message. No money, leave the business immediately. There is no excuse for that one. You are going to harm more than any good from that point onwards. Money is not an option. No money, no business at all. So I don't have money to hire good people. I don't have money to bring finance director. I don't have money to hire a big office. That point, you have to make decision. You really want to move forward? Now, the raising investment is not easy that you can go and pitch someone and get millions.

17:04unknown host:Yes, if you do that, then you start the business. But every day, if you think that money is a problem, it's a serious problem. you are causing damage to yourself in a stress, in a situation where you are not able to think because the money is a dominating factor there.

17:22Dr. Minshad Ali Ansari:Another way of saying what you're saying is if you're going to do something, if you're going to hire a CFO, do it right. You've got to go all in. Half-assing things, it's not going to work.

17:30unknown host:Absolutely, absolutely. So paying a high salary, get the good person rather than bringing someone who is not good enough.

17:38Dr. Minshad Ali Ansari:One thing that kind of jarred with me around this in the book was that Ben says, hire for exceptional strength, even if the candidate has some glaring flaws. There is definitely something to be said for making sure that your team is working well together. And if there's someone who has a big flaw that spoils the cohesion of a team, even if they're performing 5X, it might mean that the whole team as a whole is brought down to like 50 % capacity. So this exceptional person might not actually be worth it. How do you think about that?