Ben Horowitz is a cofounder and partner of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and The New York Times bestselling author of The Hard Thing About Hard Things, which is now available in over 16 languages. Prior to a16z, Ben was cofounder and CEO of Opsware (formerly Loudcloud), which was acquired by HP in 2007 for $1.6 billion, and was appointed vice president and general manager of Business Technology Optimization for Software at HP. Earlier, he was vice president and general manager of America Online's E-commerce Platform division, where he oversaw development of the company's flagship Shop@AOL service. Previously, Ben ran several product divisions at Netscape Communications. He also served as vice president of Netscape's widely acclaimed Directory and Security product line. Before joining Netscape in July 1995, he held various senior product marketing positions at Lotus Development Corporation.