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. Follow Ali on X: https://x.com/alighodsi Learn more about Databricks: https://www.databricks.com/ Timecodes 00:00 Boss Talk returns 01:01 Why Ali became CEO of Databricks in 2016 09:45 From academic to CEO 16:00 Radical candor feedback and developing high performance 19:10 Scaling intensity and culture with Databricks’ ethos 31:55 The Microsoft deal strategy timing tactics 39:00 Fighting through setbacks and sealing the partnership 42:05 Building vs buying, how Databricks approaches acquisitions 54:55 Turning down acquisition offers and aiming for trillions 1:03:45 Key pivots luck and the Databricks founding team legacy Follow Ben on X: https://x.com/bhorowitz Follow Sarah on X: https://x.com/sarahdingwang Follow Erik on X: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details, please see a16z.com/disclosure