Yes, he should have addressed something with head of sales. He should have recognized the coming downturn and stopped expanding his staff. He should have done other things. His gut was telling him this.
But he didn't. He delegated the space problem so he didn't have to think about it anymore. And it cost him $30M that he would desperately need not long later (read The Hard Thing About Hard Things for that story).
It's not about ignoring evidence that the market is turning. It's not that specific. It's that your spidey-sense, for lack of a better word - your gut, your sense of fear - is telling you that something is a problem. You can then either engage that problem, or avoid that problem. And if you avoid it, you will screw up.
But it's incredibly difficult to face our gut fear. So we don't do it.
It was a different era then. Things are a lot tighter now.
Loudcloud was a terrific concept in its day. It could have become what AWS has become. But it was growing because money was just getting poured into dotcom startups. When the money dried up, they were stuck with all this hardware and staff they had needed. It's a credit to Horowitz that he saved even the sliver he did.
But he didn't. He delegated the space problem so he didn't have to think about it anymore. And it cost him $30M that he would desperately need not long later (read The Hard Thing About Hard Things for that story).
It's not about ignoring evidence that the market is turning. It's not that specific. It's that your spidey-sense, for lack of a better word - your gut, your sense of fear - is telling you that something is a problem. You can then either engage that problem, or avoid that problem. And if you avoid it, you will screw up.
But it's incredibly difficult to face our gut fear. So we don't do it.