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VC Ben Horowitz Says Founders Make Best Startup CEOs


Venture capitalist Ben Horowitz argues startup founders should also be the CEOs of their companies. It's a familiar investment philosophy for his firm Andreessen Horowitz, well known for its preference for founding CEOs.

During an interview at the Web 2.0 Summit, Horowitz said the institutional knowledge that founding CEOs have is what makes them most suitable to run their companies. "They have a set of historical knowledge that is almost impossible to replicate," he told the audience.

Horowitz explained founding CEOs have been through every product decision, were a part of every hire, listened to customers from the beginning and are the keepers of a company's vision. He also argued founding CEOs are best equipped to avoid major mistakes because they already made those mistakes early on and learned from them.

Andreesen Horowitz was founded in 2009 by Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreesen. Horowitz was the founding CEO of Opsware, which eventually sold to HP for $1.6 billion. Andreesen was one of the cofounders of Opsware, but he's better known as the cofounder of Netscape, which sold to AOL for $4.2 billion in 1999.

Horowitz explained most of the firm's partners were once entrepreneurs and/or founding CEOs, which helps the venture capital firm better connect with the struggles facing founding CEOs.

"It helps to have founded and run a company if you're going to help somebody run a company who is a founder," Horowitz noted.

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