Ben Horowitz

You people are doing everything but your job.

You're writing these requirements.

You're pitching customers, this and that.

You're doing all this stuff.

It's a lot of work.

But your job is right product, right time.

And if you don't give me the right product at the right time, I don't give a fuck what you do.

The story of the company is, why do we exist?

Why should this be a company?

Why should you join this company?

Why should you invest in this company?

The why is the depth.

If you know the why, I don't even have to tell you the what, because you know what to do.

Well, if you have a brand, all you have is a story, right?

So this is something that I think founders...

often neglect over time is the so the story of the company is also the strategy of the company nobody's got some strategy in their back pocket that's entirely secret and then they've got a story that's different so like that's the one thing and the truth about strategy is

It's not like a meeting that you have and you go out with your team and go like, what's our strategy?

Okay, everybody give me your input.

And then we assemble this strategy by committee.

What really is happening is you have the initial idea, you're learning about the market, you're learning about the customers, you're learning about the technology, you're learning about each other.