It's Chess, and the Clock Is Your Friend

Two techniques pair naturally. First: this is not checkers; this is chess. Technology businesses are complicated, the pieces keep moving, and there is always a move. Horowitz insists on it: I believe that there is always a move. When the position looks lost, that's a claim about your imagination, not about the board.

Second: play long enough and you might get lucky. Markets shift, competitors stumble, technology changes. In tech, tomorrow looks nothing like today. If you can survive until tomorrow, a door may open that doesn't exist right now.

Neither technique is a plan. Both are reasons not to resign the game early. Loudcloud, Horowitz's own company, survived by transforming into Opsware, a move nobody saw at the start, and it only existed because the company stayed alive long enough to find it.