The month of May is American Jewish History Month, so for this entire month I will continue share the stories of important Jewish figures in American finance. Today, I will share the story of Ben Horowitz who is the co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, the largest venture capital firm in the world.
Ben Horowitz was born on June 13, 1966, in London and was raised in Berkeley, California. His father, David Horowitz, is a conservative writer and policy advocate. Horowitz’s Ashkenazi Jewish heritage traces back to his great-grandparents, who immigrated to the U.S. from the Russian Empire.
Horowitz earned a BA in Computer Science from Columbia University in and an MS from UCLA. His career began as an engineer at Silicon Graphics before joining Netscape in 1995 as a product manager. He later became Vice President of AOL’s eCommerce Division after Netscape’s acquisition.
In 1999, Horowitz co-founded Loudcloud which pioneered cloud computing services for major clients like Ford, Nike, and the U.S. Army. In 2002, Loudcloud transformed into Opsware, an enterprise software company. Horowitz led Opsware until Hewlett-Packard acquired it for $1.6 billion in 2007.
In 2009, Horowitz and Marc Andreessen launched Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm that has backed Skype, Lyft, Databricks, and Okta. The firm manages $42 billion in assets and is known for its bold investments in tech startups. Their investment philosophy focuses on investing in bold entrepreneurs who challenge conventional wisdom. He prioritizes founders over ideas, backing those with resilience and adaptability. His philosophy emphasizes long-term vision, company culture, and what he calls “wartime” leadership, ensuring startups can navigate crises and scale effectively.
Horowitz is also an author, writing The Hard Thing About Hard Things, a book on startup challenges, and What You Do Is Who You Are, which explores company culture.
One of the most interesting things to me about Horowitz is his ability to excel in one area and then use it to transition into another area and experience much success there, as well. He went from computer engineer, to become tech entrepreneur, to finance as a venture capitalist, and also became a successful writer on these subjects. It just goes to show, that if you have the drive and entrepreneurial spirit, you can excel across multiple disciplines.