Reid Hoffman

Reid Hoffman was born in Palo Alto, California, and grew up in Berkeley. Both parents were lawyers. He attended the Putney School in Vermont.⁠[1]

He earned a bachelor’s degree in symbolic systems at Stanford, studying interconnected fields including cognitive science, philosophy and computing.⁠[1]

As a Marshall Scholar, he studied at Wolfson College, Oxford, completing a master’s degree in philosophy in 1993.⁠[2]

After returning to Silicon Valley, he worked on product development at Apple and Fujitsu. Stanford’s biography places these roles before his social-networking ventures.⁠[3]

In a first-person account, he recalled leaving Fujitsu in July and raising money for SocialNet in November. The venture sought to connect people through dating and shared interests.⁠[4]

He left SocialNet to join PayPal full time, later serving as executive vice president with responsibility for external business relationships and participating in its sale to eBayeBayeBay Inc. is an online marketplace company headquartered in San Jose, California, United States, founded in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar; it started out with person-to-person online auctions and listed on Nasdaq in 1998. As of the end of 2025, it had 135 million active buyers, and its platform’s gross merchandise volume in 2025 was nearly $80 billion.Open the full entry.⁠[1][3]

LinkedIn began taking shape in his living room in 2002 and launched on May 5, 2003, focusing on professional connections, recruiting and work opportunities.⁠[5]

He married Michelle Yee. They subsequently pursued philanthropy together.⁠[6][7]

LinkedIn appointed Dan Nye as chief executive. Hoffman remained chairman and became president of products, continuing to shape product direction.⁠[8]

The company announced Nye’s resignation and Hoffman’s return as chief executive alongside his chairmanship, refocusing on overall company strategy.⁠[9]

He joined Greylock as a partner, investing in technology businesses with network effects. His investment record includes Facebook and Airbnb, alongside a continuing interest in consumer internet and artificial intelligence.⁠[10]

LinkedIn went public on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol LNKD, with its initial public offering priced at $45 per share.⁠[11]

The Startup of You, co-written with Ben Casnocha, was published. It applies entrepreneurial adaptability, relationship-building and opportunity-seeking to individual careers.⁠[12]

He co-authored The Alliance with Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh. The book examines reciprocal employer–employee relationships organized around defined tours of duty and candid commitments.⁠[13]

He donated $1 million toward establishing Oxford’s entrepreneurship center, the Oxford Foundry. Wolfson College lists him as an honorary fellow.⁠[2]

Microsoft announced the acquisition of LinkedIn on June 13 at $196 per share, valuing the transaction at $26.2 billion, and completed it on December 8. Hoffman supported the deal as co-founder and chairman; the amount represents the company transaction.⁠[14][15]

The British government awarded him an honorary CBE for services to UK business, social networking and the Marshall Scholarship scheme.⁠[16]

Microsoft announced his appointment to its board, effective immediately, expanding the board to twelve members.⁠[17]

His entrepreneurship podcast Masters of Scale released a conversation with Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky about developing a business through carefully crafted customer experiences before scaling.⁠[18]

He and Michelle Yee joined the Giving Pledge. Their public letter emphasizes individual agency, education and communities, outlining interests including hunger relief, entrepreneurship and scientific research.⁠[7]

He and Chris Yeh published Blitzscaling, developing material from their Stanford course into a book about pursuing rapid scale under uncertainty.⁠[19]

He apologized after American Engagement Technologies, which he funded, financed New Knowledge’s Alabama election disinformation project. He denied prior knowledge or authorization, acknowledged inadequate oversight and supported investigation of what had happened.⁠[20]

He co-founded Inflection AI with Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan. The company launched the conversational assistant Pi in 2023, aiming to provide everyday interaction and support through natural language.⁠[21]

He announced his departure from OpenAI’s board, recalling his 2015 investment and 2018 board appointment. He said Greylock portfolio companies’ growing use of OpenAI technology created potential perceptions of conflicts of interest that he wanted to avoid.⁠[22]

He released Impromptu, written in collaboration with GPT-4, using human–AI co-writing to explore how the technology might extend human capabilities.⁠[23]

He publicly acknowledged helping fund E. Jean Carroll’s litigation against Donald Trump, saying he wanted to support her access to legal remedies and denying that he had sought to conceal the assistance.⁠[24]

Manas AI, co-founded with oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee, launched with $24.6 million in seed funding. It uses technologies including Microsoft Azure for drug discovery, initially emphasizing cancer.⁠[25]

He and Greg Beato published Superagency with Authors Equity, examining how artificial intelligence might expand individual agency and social opportunity.⁠[26]

The channel released an interview covering LinkedIn’s creation, its Microsoft acquisition and professional networks. He advised founders to examine objections, identify their distinctive insight and take risks they could survive. For networking, he emphasized considering how to help the other person.⁠[27]

Manas AI announced a $26 million seed extension and Ujjwal Singh’s appointment as co-founder and chief technology officer, supporting its drug-discovery models and research programs.⁠[28]

Manas AI announced a multiyear agreement combining Schrödinger’s computational chemistry platform and scientific support with its own AI models for molecular discovery. Financial terms were not disclosed.⁠[29]

He corrected his 2019 statement that his last contact with Jeffrey Epstein was in 2015, saying calendar records showed further meetings or calls in 2016 and 2018. He attributed the contacts to MIT fundraising and expressed regret. On February 13, he separately claimed on X that the FBI had cleared him; this was his own assertion.⁠[30][31]

CNN reported a Justice Department inquiry involving American Future Republic, the nonprofit he backed that helped fund Carroll’s litigation. Hoffman called it political retaliation and said he would continue his support. The reported investigation did not establish a conviction against him.⁠[32][33]

Microsoft’s subsequent filing states that he notified the company on June 2 that he would not seek re-election at its 2026 annual meeting and would serve until then. The filing says the decision did not result from a disagreement with the company.⁠[34]

Personal website: https://www.reidhoffman.org/ (opens in a new window). X: https://x.com/reidhoffman (opens in a new window). YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: https://www.youtube.com/@reidhoffman (opens in a new window). LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reidhoffman (opens in a new window). His channel covers AI, entrepreneurship and Possible, the podcast he co-hosts with Aria Finger.⁠[35][36]