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In a 2016 UC Berkeley talk Ben Horowitz recounts Stewart telling him the game…

2026-08-07 · 00:08 UTC ·@a16z ·1 min read

Brief

Ben Horowitz recounts Stewart calling with a last-ditch plan: the game studio had $6 million left and could either finish the game, shut down and return the $6M, or launch an internal communication tool as a product — the choice that led to Slack. Horowitz was skeptical but encouraged the pivot in a 2016 UC Berkeley talk; a16z shared the clip on 2026-08-07.

Why it matters

In a 2016 UC Berkeley talk Ben Horowitz recounts Stewart telling him the game studio had $6 million left and three choices: finish the game ("pray for rain"), shut down and return Horowitz's $6M, or productize an internal engineering communication tool — the path that became Slack.

Key details

  • Horowitz said he was skeptical about shifting from consumer to enterprise but told Stewart "$6 million is not gonna make any difference in my life" and to pursue the idea if he truly believed; a16z reposted the anecdote on 2026-08-07.
Source evidence

.@bhorowitz on how a game studio turned it's last $6 million into Slack:

"Stewart calls me. He says, 'Ben, I've got $6 million left. I have no way to raise money because I've made really no progress. So I've got three choices. I can pray for rain and try and finish it, I can shut down the company and give you your $6 million back, or we built this tool that we use in our engineering team to communicate with each other, and I could just put that out as a product.'"

"I'm like, 'What? You just built some tool to talk to each other and you want to put that out as a product? And you're a consumer guy, and you want to become an enterprise software guy?'"

"$6 million is not gonna make any difference in my life. If you really think it's a good idea, go ahead."

Ben Horowitz Talks Honesty, Failure, and Secrets at UC Berkeley (2016)

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