Ben Horowitz

Benjamin Abraham Horowitz (born June 13, 1966) is an American venture capitalist , entrepreneur, and author.

He co-founded the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz in 2009 with Marc Andreessen , where he serves as general partner, focusing on investments in software, consumer internet, and emerging technologies such as cryptocurrency .

Prior to entering venture capital , Horowitz co-founded Loudcloud in 1999, which pivoted to Opsware amid the dot-com bust, went public, and was acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion in 2007 after he led the company as CEO through severe financial distress including layoffs and near-bankruptcy.

Earlier, he held senior product roles at Netscape Communications, including vice president of the Directory and Security Product Line, contributing to enterprise software development during the browser wars era.

Horowitz earned a BA in computer science from Columbia University in 1988 and an MS in computer science from UCLA in 1990.

His writings, including the New York Times bestsellers The Hard Thing About Hard Things (2014), which draws from his Opsware experiences to offer unvarnished advice on CEO challenges, and What You Do Is Who You Are (2019), exploring organizational culture through historical and modern examples, have influenced tech leaders by emphasizing pragmatic, context-driven decision-making over abstract ideals.

Andreessen Horowitz under his involvement has backed transformative companies across sectors, yielding substantial returns, such as early stakes in Coinbase and Airbnb , underscoring his track record in identifying scalable tech innovations amid market skepticism.

Benjamin Abraham Horowitz was born on June 13, 1966, in London , England , to American parents David Horowitz and Elissa Krauthamer, who were then living abroad as expatriates. In 1968, his father relocated the family to Berkeley, California , drawn by the burgeoning radical movements of the New Left , where they settled into a home amid the city's countercultural milieu. This early transatlantic move exposed Horowitz from infancy to shifting environments, requiring adaptation to the politically intense atmosphere of Berkeley during the late 1960s and 1970s .

Horowitz spent his formative years in Berkeley, a hub of leftist activism and intellectual ferment, growing up in a household steeped in discussions of radical philosophy and social upheaval reflective of the era's upheavals. He attended Berkeley High School, where he was among the minority of white students on the football team, navigating interactions in a multiracial setting that demanded social agility amid the city's diverse and often tense demographics. These experiences, including the initial family relocation and immersion in Berkeley's volatile cultural landscape, fostered early habits of resilience through repeated exposure to ideological contention and community diversity.

David Horowitz , Ben Horowitz's father, emerged as a key intellectual in the New Left during the 1960s, editing the radical magazine Ramparts and offering logistical and financial support to the Black Panther Party , including helping establish their community service programs in the early 1970s. This phase reflected a commitment to revolutionary Marxism , rooted in his own upbringing by parents active in the Communist Party USA . However, a pivotal rupture occurred in 1974 when his colleague Betty Van Patter, hired to manage the Panthers' Oakland bookkeeping, was murdered under circumstances implicating party leaders; Horowitz's subsequent investigations revealed systemic corruption and violence within the group, eroding his faith in the movement's moral and practical foundations.