Reid Hoffman

An accomplished entrepreneur, executive, and investor, Reid Hoffman has played an integral role in building many of today’s leading consumer technology businesses, including LinkedIn and PayPal. He possesses a unique understanding of consumer behavior and the dynamics of viral businesses, as well as deep experience in driving companies from the earliest stages through periods of explosive, “blitzscale” growth. Ranging from LinkedIn to PayPal, from Airbnb to Convoy to Facebook, he invests in businesses with network effects and collaborates on building their product ecosystems. Hoffman co-founded LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional networking service, in 2003. LinkedIn is thriving with more than 700 million members around the world and a diversified revenue model that includes subscriptions, advertising, and software licensing. He led LinkedIn through its first four years and to profitability as Chief Executive Officer. In 2016 LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft, and he became a board member of Microsoft. Prior to LinkedIn, Hoffman served as executive vice president at PayPal, where he was also a founding board member. Hoffman joined Greylock in 2009. He focuses on building products that can reach hundreds of millions of participants and businesses that have network effects. He currently serves on the boards of Aurora, Coda, Convoy, Entrepreneur First, Joby, Microsoft, Nauto, Neeva, and a few early stage companies still in stealth. In addition, he serves on a number of not-for-profit boards, including Kiva, Endeavor, CZ Biohub, New America, Berggruen Institute, Opportunity@Work, the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, and the MacArthur Foundation’s Lever for Change. Prior to joining Greylock, he invested personally in many influential Internet companies, including Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, and Zynga. In 2022, Hoffman co-founded Inflection AI, an artificial intelligence company that aims to create software products that make it easier for humans to communicate with computers. Hoffman is the host of Masters of Scale, an original podcast series and the first American media program to commit to a 50-50 gender balance for featured guests as well as Possible, a podcast that sketches out the brightest version of the future—and what it will take to get there. He is the co-author of five best-selling books: The Startup of You, The Alliance, Blitzscaling, Masters of Scale, and Impromptu. Hoffman earned a master’s degree in philosophy from Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and a bachelor’s degree with distinction in symbolic systems from Stanford University. In 2010 he was the recipient of an SD Forum Visionary Award and named a Henry Crown Fellow by The Aspen Institute. In 2012, he was honored by the Martin Luther King center’s Salute to Greatness Award. Also in 2012, he received the David Packard Medal of Achievement from TechAmerica and an honorary doctor of law from Babson University. In 2017, he was appointed as a CBE by her majesty Queen Elizabeth II. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Oulu, an international science university, in 2020. In 2022, Reid received Vanderbilt University's prestigious Nichols-Chancellor's Medal and delivered the Graduates Day address to the Class of 2022 on the importance and power of friendship.