Ben Horowitz
InvestorFounderCo-founder & General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz · Advisor at A.Capital Ventures · Board director at Anyscale · Board director at Sisu Data · Board director at Databricks
Las Vegas, NV
Writes $10M – $60M checks · typically $20M
FoundedOpsware
Midas 2012 · #20Midas 2013 · #17Midas 2014 · #20Midas 2015 · #25Midas 2016 · #41Midas 2017 · #47Midas 2018 · #68Midas 2019 · #73Midas 2020 · #4Midas 2021 · #38Midas 2022 · #87Midas 2023 · #73Midas 2024 · #37Midas 2025 · #33Midas 2026 · #27
Find your path to Ben
537 people in our graph share verified history with Ben — schools, employers, funds. One of them is your warm intro.
Photo: TechCrunch, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons ↗
About
Ben Horowitz ran Loudcloud and Opsware through the dot-com crash and sold the company to HP for $1.6 billion before co-founding Andreessen Horowitz in 2009. He led the firm's investments in companies such as Okta, Databricks, and Nicira, and writes about management with a signature habit of opening chapters with rap lyrics. His two books on leadership and company culture are staples of startup reading lists.
Contact· published on Ben's own website
Likely email· guessed from name + firm domain, not firm-published
- b•••@a16z.comreveal75% confident
Invests in
AI & Machine LearningBiotechConsumerCreator EconomyCrypto & Web3CybersecurityData & InfrastructureDefense TechDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareFintechMarketplaces
Beyond investing
- Founded
- Cofounded and served as CEO of Opsware (formerly Loudcloud), acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion in 2007. Cofounded the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
- Education
- Earned a BA in computer science from Columbia University. Earned an MS in computer science from UCLA.
- Charities
- Created the a16z Cultural Leadership Fund to connect cultural leaders with technology companies and help more young African Americans enter the tech industry.
- Communities
- Cohosts The Ben & Marc Show podcast with a16z cofounder Marc Andreessen.
- Awards
- Authored the New York Times bestsellers The Hard Thing About Hard Things and What You Do Is Who You Are.
Mentioned above: the Columbia University mafia → · the UCLA mafia → · the Andreessen Horowitz mafia →
From Ben's own website — common ground for a warm intro.
Board director at Anyscale
Intro paths
In turn, Ben can intro founders to Anyscale's investors below.
Anyscale's investors · 9
Co-founders at Anyscale
Board director at Sisu Data
Intro paths
In turn, Ben can intro founders to Sisu Data's investors below.
Sisu Data's investors · 4
Co-founders at Sisu Data
Board director at Databricks
Intro paths
In turn, Ben can intro founders to Databricks's investors below.
Databricks's investors · 78
Co-founders at Databricks
Experience
- Andreessen HorowitzHorowitzcurrent2009 — present
- Hewlett-PackardVice President and General Manager2007 — 2008
- Opsware Inc.President and CEO1999 — 2007
- Opsware Inc.CEO1999 — 2007
Deals · 2
DatabricksQuoted
via Andreessen Horowitz · filed Sep 2025
AnyscaleQuoted
via Andreessen Horowitz · filed Aug 2019
Attribution from SEC filings, press coverage, and firm rosters.
Other disclosed investments
Investor
Airbnb, GitHub, Coinbase, Oculus, Skype and other marquee a16z companiesCaffeineCrestaCultural Leadership Fund portfolioJawboneLyftMarkhorMayvennNationBuilderOktaSisu DataTripactionsUnitedMasters
Per curated public sources.
Controversies & responses
Where Ben has drawn public criticism — with what happened, their response, and the criticism itself, side by side.
▶Databricks-Fivetran interlock inquiry remained unresolved2025
- What happened
- Reporting said the Justice Department examined whether a16z partner board seats at Databricks and Fivetran could violate Clayton Act restrictions on interlocking directorates. Horowitz serves at Databricks while Martin Casado was associated with Fivetran. No final agency decision or finding of Horowitz wrongdoing was reported in the reviewed evidence.
Founder fit — who Ben backs
Best fit is a technically or operationally credible founder pursuing a giant category opened by an architectural shift, with unusual product insight, recruiting power, market knowledge and willingness to face bad news. Horowitz has repeatedly favored founders he knows from prior operating networks, domain experts, repeat founders and teams commercializing hard infrastructure or transforming culturally important markets. He appears especially useful to CEOs navigating executive hiring, enterprise go-to-market, board conflict, layoffs, strategic pivots, culture design and near-death conditions. His current and signed portfolio suggests fit across cloud identity, data/AI infrastructure, distributed systems, enterprise workflows, politics/civic software, creator economics, Black consumer markets, music and industrial robotics.
Likely weak fits include small markets, incremental products that simply port an old architecture, founders who hide bad news, slogan-heavy cultures without behavioral mechanisms, companies unable to recruit missing expertise, and plans dependent on regulatory arbitrage or valuation momentum rather than durable customer value. Jawbone and Caffeine show that famous investors, large financing totals and cultural visibility do not cure weak execution or network effects. Political alignment is not a documented requirement and should not be inferred from Horowitz's 2024 activity.
How to pitch
Start with why this founder is uniquely equipped, then show the platform shift, why the market becomes enormous, and what has changed technically or behaviorally. Demonstrate customer evidence, architecture, recruiting strength, distribution and the hard decisions already made. Explain which a16z vehicle and specialist fit the round; do not assume Horowitz personally leads every a16z investment. If seeking his involvement, specify the CEO, culture, enterprise scaling, board or crisis problem where his operating experience matters. Address competition, burn, valuation, governance, regulation, safety and failure modes directly. For AI, crypto or physical-world companies, distinguish policy hopes from product economics and prove a legitimate customer-driven right to operate.
Stages: seed and early venture, Series A and Series B, growth and late-stage through a16z vehicles, public-company and private-company board governance, specialized Cultural Leadership Fund co-investment, historical founder-company financing and turnaround · Sectors: enterprise software, cloud identity and security, data infrastructure and analytics, AI and distributed computing, developer and open-source infrastructure, corporate travel and fintech workflows, consumer marketplaces, creator economy, music and media, civic and political technology, Black consumer and cultural markets, industrial AI and robotics, physical-world services, crypto and web3 at firm-policy level, American dynamism and technology policy
Editorial inference from Ben's portfolio, writing and public record — not a published mandate.
Investment themes
11 documented themes from Ben's essays, talks and portfolio, grouped by what they say about founders.
▶Founders & company building1
The investment thesis starts with the entrepreneur2010
Horowitz's Okta essay explicitly starts with Todd McKinnon's domain expertise and management ability before architecture and market size.
For founders: Lead with earned founder advantage and evidence of exceptional execution, not a generic market slide.
▶More themes8
Architectural difference creates startup opportunity2010
Cloud-native architecture, distributed computing and now industrial AI recur as opportunities where old products cannot simply be moved unchanged.
For founders: Show what becomes newly possible and why incumbents' architecture or incentives prevent adaptation.
Bad news must travel fast2010
CEOs build trust and problem-solving capacity by exposing negative reality rather than projecting false optimism.
For founders: Discuss misses, risks and corrective mechanisms without waiting for the investor to discover them.
Wartime leadership differs from peacetime leadership2011
His operating framework argues that existential threats require tighter direction, focus and tolerance for imperfect choices than expansion periods.
For founders: Diagnose the company's mode and explain how decision rights, priorities and communication adapt.
Culture is what people repeatedly do2019
Values become culture only through specific behaviors, incentives and leader examples; historical case studies in his second book illustrate both constructive and morally fraught cultures.
For founders: Translate each claimed value into hiring, meeting, compensation, customer and crisis behavior.
Trusted experts can reorganize broken markets2015
Mayvenn's stylist channel embodies a broader interest in giving domain experts inventory-light commerce and income leverage.
For founders: Identify who customers already trust and how software improves that participant's economics.
Convert cultural capital into ownership and data2017
UnitedMasters and CLF connect artists and Black cultural leaders to technology ownership, direct audience relationships and cap tables.
For founders: Show credible cultural relationships, creator economics, data ownership and equitable value distribution.
Industrial AI should multiply human productivity2026
The Atoms thesis argues specialized robots will transform movement, storage and production while productive people remain the limiting factor. Labor-displacement critics dispute the optimism.
For founders: Demonstrate deployment economics, human role, safety, social license and customer indispensability.
Little Tech became explicit political advocacy2024
Horowitz and Andreessen tied startup formation to positions on AI, crypto, taxes and regulation and supported candidates accordingly. The firm's economic exposure requires conflict-aware interpretation.
For founders: Treat regulation as a transparent dependency and maintain a compliant business case under multiple political outcomes.
▶AI & media1
Open and distributed AI infrastructure matters strategically2019
Anyscale's Ray thesis and later public advocacy connect accessible distributed compute with open-source AI and American competitiveness. These strategic claims are contested by safety, security and concentration concerns.
For founders: Prove developer adoption and commercialization while addressing model safety, misuse, export and governance risks.
▶Governance & network states1
Boards matter most in hard decisions2009
Horowitz frames board work as active CEO assistance in hiring, crisis, strategy and accountability; public lead-independent roles at Okta and Navan provide governance evidence.
For founders: Clarify board information flow, conflicts, reserved matters and how disagreement will be handled before financing.
Books by Ben Horowitz
Podcasts & interviews
featuring Ben HorowitzSecrets of Being a Wartime CEO | Ben Horowitz, Andreessen Horowitz Cofounder
Summation with Auren Hoffman
AI & the Crypto Revolution: Andreessen Horowitz Cofounder Ben Horowitz #a16z
Summation with Auren Hoffman
Ben Horowitz on Raising a New Fund and How Venture Firms Scale
Andreessen Horowitz / Uncapped · a16z.com
Ben Horowitz On What Makes a Great Founder
Andreessen Horowitz / Sequoia Capital · a16z.com
Venture Capitalist Ben Horowitz to Make Significant Donation for Harris
Reuters · reuters.com
Why Ben and Felicia Horowitz Made a Shocking Political U-turn
The San Francisco Standard · sfstandard.com
Writing
Co-authored Atoms investment announcement articulating industrial AI, specialized robotics, social license, productivity and repeat-founder ambition.
Leadership book arguing that culture is encoded in action, using historical leaders whose methods require moral and contextual scrutiny rather than imitation wholesale.
Co-authored with Chris Lyons; defines CLF's Black cultural-leader LP model and charitable disposition of fees and carry.
Mayvenn thesis on trusted-expert distribution, hair-supply-chain dysfunction and stylist economic empowerment.
First-person operating book on CEO psychology, layoffs, executive hiring, wartime leadership, pivots and survival, grounded substantially in Loudcloud/Opsware.
Okta investment thesis centered on founder expertise, cloud-native architecture and convergence of identity and systems management.
1 more post
- CEOs Should Tell It Like It Is2010-07-02
Colleagues at Andreessen Horowitz
Network9
Investors connected to Ben in public investor directories — a warm-intro map.
Frequently asked questions
- Who is Ben Horowitz?
- He is Benjamin Abraham Horowitz, a computer scientist by education, former Netscape/AOL executive, co-founder and CEO of Loudcloud/Opsware, co-founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, director and author.
- What did he study?
- He earned a B.A. in computer science from Columbia in 1988 and an M.S. in computer science from UCLA in 1990.
- What happened at Loudcloud and Opsware?
- Loudcloud went public in 2001, then sold its managed-services business to EDS for $63.5 million in 2002 and became Opsware, an automation-software company. HP acquired Opsware for approximately $1.6 billion in 2007. Transaction values are not Horowitz's personal proceeds.
- Why did he co-found a16z?
- Horowitz and Andreessen believed venture capital should be a better product for entrepreneurs, combining investment judgment with recruiting, marketing, executive and operating support informed by founder experience.
- Which current investments are most directly attributable to him?
- Current official board evidence supports Anyscale, Databricks, Mayvenn, NationBuilder, Navan and UnitedMasters; his July 2026 signed Atoms announcement adds a new board relationship. Signed theses provide especially strong attribution for Anyscale, Mayvenn, Navan, UnitedMasters and Atoms.
- Did he lead every famous a16z investment?
- No. The official investment list covers a16z-managed vehicles and does not assign partner sourcing. Airbnb, GitHub, Coinbase, Oculus, Skype and other famous firm outcomes should not be attributed to Horowitz without deal-specific evidence.
- What is his investment philosophy?
- His signed work starts with exceptional founders, then looks for large markets opened by architectural change, differentiated products, recruiting strength and durable distribution. His operating doctrine adds truth-telling, crisis resilience and culture expressed as behavior.
- How should a founder pitch him?
- Show why the founder is uniquely qualified, what technical or distribution shift creates a giant market, customer evidence, talent density and the hardest risks. Name the relevant a16z vehicle and explain where Horowitz's CEO or board experience is specifically useful.
- What are his clearest investment successes?
- Okta is the clearest early signed-thesis and board success. Lyft and Navan became public during or around his board service, while Databricks is a prominent still-private board company. Public listing and valuation are not identical to realized fund return.
- Which failures or mixed outcomes belong in the record?
- Jawbone liquidated after heavy financing and Caffeine shut down; both have meaningful Horowitz relationship or board evidence. Sisu's current outcome is unclear. Broader a16z losses are not personalized without evidence.
- What books did he write?
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things (2014) addresses CEO decisions under pressure; What You Do Is Who You Are (2019) addresses how leader behavior creates culture. a16z describes both as New York Times bestsellers.
- What is the Cultural Leadership Fund?
- CLF is an a16z vehicle created by Horowitz and Chris Lyons with Black cultural leaders as LPs. It co-invests in a16z portfolio companies and donates all management fees and carry to efforts advancing Black talent in technology; Lyons raised and leads it.
- What is known about his family and philanthropy?
- He and Felicia Horowitz have been married since 1988 and have three adult children. Felicia leads the Horowitz Family Foundation; Stanford documents its $1 million prison COVID-response gift. Private child identities and speculative wealth are excluded.
- What was his 2024 political activity?
- He supported pro-Trump efforts with Andreessen over AI, crypto, tax and startup policy, then he and Felicia announced significant support for Harris-Walz because of their longstanding friendship with Harris. He said a16z's technology-policy stance had not changed.
Founder mafias
Columbia University mafia454
Also came through, then founded or led a company.
+ 447 more
UCLA mafia360
Also came through, then founded or led a company.
+ 353 more
Andreessen Horowitz mafia68
Also came through, then founded or led a company.
+ 61 more
Databricks mafia32
Also came through, then founded or led a company.
+ 25 more
Foursquare mafia15
Also came through, then founded or led a company.
+ 8 more
Same school
Also attended UCLA903
+ 897 more
Also attended Columbia University1,208
+ 1,202 more
Shared employers
Also worked at Hewlett-Packard506
+ 500 more
