Ben Horowitz on the ideal founding team for a startup

Ben looks for two people on a founding team:

1. The inventor. “It’s the inventor’s job to build a product that’s 10x better than anything that’s available to solve that problem.”

2. The entrepreneur. “The entrepreneur’s job is to take the market.”

When Ben and Marc Andreessen founded Opsware, Ben was the entrepreneur and Marc was the inventor.

“What helped us a lot was that - as an entrepreneur - I’ve got a master’s degree in computer science, so I understood invention. And I understood how to drive the company around continuous innovation. And that’s really, really important. And Marc, although he invented the browser and a lot of important things, he knows a lot about business, markets and competition.”

Ben continues:

“The best thing to do is to have two people who know how to do both, but at least one person who’s world-class in each. And that’s how you think about the founding team.”

Full video: UC Berkeley Events “Ben Horowitz, Co-Founder, Andreessen Horowitz“ (Nov 2009)

P.S. We’ve put together a YouTube playlist with every Ben Horowitz insight we’ve ever shared. You can watch it here: "Best startup advice from Ben Horowitz"