Too busy to read?

Good product managers err on the side of clarity. Bad product managers never even explain the obvious. Good product managers define their job and their success. Bad product managers constantly want to be told what to do.

Hiring scalable execs too early is a bad mistake. There is no such thing as a great executive. There is only a great executive for a specific company at a specific point in time.

To better prepare for the hire this time, I decided in the interim to run sales myself. I managed the team, ran the forecast calls, and was the one person responsible for the revenue number for Opsware. I'd learned the hard way that when hiring executives, one should follow Colin Powell's instructions and hire for strength rather than lack of weakness. By running sales, I understood very clearly the strengths we needed. I made a careful list and set out to find the sales executives with the right skills and talents for Opsware.

Ten dollars per minute When we started Andreessen Horowitz, Marc and I wanted the firm to treat entrepreneurs with great respect. We remembered how psychologically brutal the process of building a company was.