Reid Hoffman

Building networks as an operator and investor

Hoffman grew up in Berkeley in a household of two lawyers and later studied at Stanford and Oxford. After early work at Apple and Fujitsu, he founded SocialNet, an online social-networking company that failed to reach lasting scale but gave him direct startup experience. ^[3][2]

Hoffman then joined PayPal, where he served as a founding board member and executive vice president responsible for external relationships. In 2003 he co-founded LinkedIn and became its founding chief executive before moving into the chairman role as the professional network expanded. ^[1][2]

He joined Greylock in 2009 and became an early investor or adviser to companies including Airbnb and Aurora. Microsoft's 2016 acquisition of LinkedIn crystallized much of the value created by his founder stake, while venture investing became the next durable source of his business activity and wealth. ^[1][2]

The Microsoft transaction is therefore best understood as a liquidity event for a founder stake rather than a payment equal to LinkedIn's entire purchase price. Hoffman shared ownership with employees and outside investors, so the wealth realized from the sale reflected his own equity interest; Greylock investing then provided a separate channel for compounding that accumulated capital across later technology companies. ^[1][2]