The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz

A lot of people idealize entrepreneurs. The cash-rich lifestyles. The world-changing companies.

However, these sentiments are naive. Just ask anyone who has either started their own business or been close to someone who has.

Starting a business is brutal. It's raw. Things never go how you think they will.

However, most business books don't really acknowledge this. We fast-forward through the many years of forming a company and end up in the late-stage problems. Concepts are presented in clean frameworks. Todo lists and 'action plans.'

But life doesn't work that way. It turns out the hard thing about doing hard things is that they're hard.

Ben Horowitz's seminal book is an honest sharing of his experience at Opsware through its sale to Hewlett-Packard for $1.6B and the lessons learned along the way. It is refreshing, candid, and full of insight. Authentic, well-paced, and concise. A wholly unique and relatable read. One of my favorite books of all time.