He also extensively quoted rap lyrics in 2014's 'The Hard Thing About Hard Things' and has appeared on stage with Nas, for which the defunct tech tabloid Valleywag bitingly criticized him.

It may seem out of place or appropriative, but Horowitz has long been drawing business lessons from hip-hop, as years of personal blog posts attest. That's right, a book about being a CEO, an occupation that's overwhelmingly white-male and managing to get older by the year and a marker of status and privilege, makes extensive use of music traditionally created by young black men that have not been afforded the same privileges by society, to put it lightly. And each chapter of 'What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture' out this week, is ushered in with a verse. It's not your standard pantheon of management thinkers.īut Ben Horowitz, startup CEO turned mega-investor at Andressen Horowitz, is a lifelong devotee of hip hop. They serve as odes of appreciation to hip-hop and a lens by which Horowitz understands organizational culture. A rap lyric serves as the epigraph of each chapter.The book is an in-depth guide to how CEOs can form company culture, based on the examples set by three historical leaders: Toussaint Louverture, Shaka Senghor, and Genghis Khan.On Tuesday, Ben Horowitz, cofounder and general partner at venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, released his second book, 'What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture'.

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