Benjamin Horowitz

Benjamin Horowitz is the cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and a general partner at the firm.

Before a16z, he was the cofounder and CEO of Opsware (formerly Loudcloud). Horowitz took the company public in what became known as the “IPO from hell,” then sold it to Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion. Earlier, he held senior roles at Netscape, AOL, and Lotus.

Horowitz speaks with unusual candor about leadership under pressure. He rejects polished management theory. Instead, he focuses on what actually happens when markets turn, teams fracture, and survival is uncertain. His core belief is to run toward fear, not away from it.

As an investor, Benjamin Horowitz has backed companies from Facebook and Airbnb to Stripe, OpenAI, and Databricks. Today, he argues that artificial intelligence is not just another wave, but an entirely new computing platform. Bigger. Faster. And far more unpredictable.

Horowitz’s bestselling books The Hard Thing About Hard Things and What You Do Is Who You Are, have reshaped how founders think about building companies, hiring leaders, and making decisions when there are no good options.

He created the a16z Cultural Leadership Fund to connect top cultural leaders with emerging tech companies and open pathways for more African Americans into the industry. He also founded initiatives like Paid in Full, supporting pioneering hip-hop artists.

On stage, Benjamin Horowitz speaks about:

• – The reality of building companies when everything goes wrong
• – Why most leadership advice fails under pressure
• – The cultural decisions that make or break organisations
• – Where the biggest AI opportunities still lie
• – How founders scale themselves