Ben Horowitz - "Your ONLY job is Right Product, Right Time"

**Ben Horowitz** (0:00)
You people are doing everything but your job. You're writing these requirements, you're pitching customers, this and that, and you're doing all this stuff. It's a lot of work. But your job is right product, right time. And if you don't give me the right product at the right time, I don't give a fuck what you do.
The story of the company is, why do we exist? Why should this be a company? Why should you join this company? Why should you invest in this company? The why is the depth. If you know the why, I don't even have to tell you the why, because you know what to do.

**Eric Torenberg** (0:30)
Founders spend time on everything. Hiring, fundraising, product specs, customer conversations. But at the end of the day, there's only one thing that determines whether a company works. Whether you deliver the right product at the right time. Everything else supports that goal. Strategy evolves as you learn. The story becomes how you communicate it. And the team exists to execute it. But none of it matters if the product isn't right.
In a world where tools are changing faster than ever, the core challenge remains the same.
Here's Ben Horowitz speaking at a16z's Speedrun on what it takes to get it right.

**Eric Torenberg** (1:12)
Another challenge that we talk about here at Speedrun often is sort of building teams. Many of the folks who are bringing on their first employees, their first sort of set up hires.
What do you find has worked best in teams trying to attract top talent early on when they don't have as much of a brand or attract record just yet?

**Ben Horowitz** (1:31)
Well, if you have a brand, all you have is a story, right? So this is something that I think founders often neglect over time.
So the story of the company is also the strategy of the company. Nobody's got some strategy in their back pocket that's entirely secret and then they've got a story that's different. So like that's the one thing. And the truth about strategy is, it's not like a meeting that you have and you go out with your team and go like, what's our strategy? Okay, everybody give me your input. And then we assemble this strategy by committee. What really is happening is you have the initial idea, you're learning about the market, you're learning about the customers, you're learning about the technology, you're learning about each other. And in your mind, you're kind of adjusting that strategy a little bit at a time every day.
But then a quarter later, it's actually pretty different than what you started with. And so it's really important that you keep upgrading your story, the articulation of your story. Like I would definitely recommend it be in written form and kind of be something that you can share with everybody in the company. But everybody you're recruiting, everybody you're trying to raise money from, like all your constituents, every customer, what the hell is the story of this thing? And the problem that I think founders have is it doesn't feel like work. Like what are you doing today? I'm working on my story. That doesn't sound like work. Why don't you have like OpenClaw write that for you, But sorry for the language. I used to be a CEO.
So because it doesn't feel like work, people don't do it, but it's probably one of the most important parts of the job is to have that thing really. And even like today at the firm, John will tell you, like I write the story every once in a while, not all the time, but it's very helpful for people to just go. And it's helpful for me to go, this is what we're trying to do here.

**Eric Torenberg** (3:37)
And just double-clicking on that because I feel like that's so important. What does that look like tactically when you say writing down stories? Is it being active in social media? Is it a culture doc?

**Ben Horowitz** (3:45)
No, no, I think the culture is kind of separate from the story of the company. The story of the company is like, why do we exist? Like, why should this be a company?
Why should you join this company? Why should you invest in this company? Why should you work at this company? You have to answer that question, the why. So, the story is answering the why. Like, you have KPIs and OKRs or all that kind of stuff. That's what. But the what is kind of a vague interpretation of the why.
The why is the depth. If you know the why, I don't even have to tell you the what, because you know what to do. That's a strategy. I know what my job is. I'm going to go run after that. It depends on what medium you are best at articulating yourself in. But I think that, I would say, like writing it out long form helps a lot, because it forces you to be the most disciplined on it. But you just have to have a running articulation of the why.