Ben Horowitz and Ali Ghodsi: How to Run a Billion-Dollar Business

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Oct 15, 2025

Guest

Ben Horowitz

Guest

Ali Ghodsi

Ali Ghodsi, the dynamic co-founder and CEO of Databricks, and Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, dive into the intricacies of running a multi-billion-dollar business. They share valuable insights on navigating crises and pivotal hiring strategies. Ali reveals his journey transforming an open-source project into a lucrative enterprise. The duo also emphasizes the importance of sustaining company culture while minimizing burnout, retaining talent in a competitive market, and the role of timing and grit in achieving large deals.

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The 2016 CEO Turnaround

Databricks nearly collapsed in 2016 and the board sought a new CEO, leading Ali to step in after internal struggles.
Ben recounts vetting Ali and giving him a one-year trial to fix clear product and go-to-market problems.

Open Source Can Be Your Main Competitor

Open-source success can be your biggest competitor because customers default to free versions.
Ali realized Databricks needed proprietary differentiation and an aggressive internal pivot to survive.

00:00 / 00:00

Become A Student Of The Job

Admit what you don't know, then study the role deeply and learn from the best practitioners.
Hire exceptional people who lift you and create recursive managerial leverage.

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Ben Horowitz founded Loudcloud in the middle of the dot-com bust and sold it for $1.6 billion, then led Andreessen Horowitz from its founding to $46 billion in committed capital. Ali Ghodsi co-founded Databricks, stepped in as CEO during a crisis, and led it to a valuation of over $100 billion.

In this episode of “Boss Talk”, Ben and Ali join a16z General Partners Sarah Wang and Erik Torenberg to share founder war stories, how to hire and make deals, how to keep culture intense without burning employees out, and why founders should raise their ambitions even higher.

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