Reid Hoffman never lost faith in the consumer internet. After PayPal’s sale to eBay in 2002, while other founders and investors looked to cleantech and played it safe, Hoffman remained focused. He delayed a year-long global trip, sensing that the post-dot-com bust was an opportunity, not an ending. That belief led to LinkedIn, which he co-founded in 2003. Today, Hoffman is best known as the Co-Founder of LinkedIn and Inflection AI, and as a partner at Greylock. He also serves on the boards of Microsoft, Coda, Aurora, and more, continuing to influence the shape of technology through both action and investment.
Born in Palo Alto, California, Hoffman earned a bachelor’s degree with distinction in symbolic systems from Stanford University and a master’s degree in philosophy from Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar. At Greylock, he works closely with founders, bringing not only capital but also a long-term approach to company building. At Inflection AI, where he is a co-founder, he’s exploring how artificial intelligence can enable more meaningful human-computer interaction. Hoffman is also the host of Masters of Scale and Possible podcasts, and co-author of five bestselling books including Blitzscaling and The Startup of You—each offering frameworks for growth and resilience rooted in his own journey.
Across all of Hoffman’s ventures runs a consistent theme: sharing the lessons behind the success. “Entrepreneurs often ask me for help with their pitch decks,” he once wrote, eventually publishing the original Series B LinkedIn pitch deck—warts and all—so others could learn from it. That transparency, and his willingness to reflect publicly on both missteps and insights, has made him not just a successful founder and investor, but a compass for countless entrepreneurs navigating what’s next.