Reid Hoffman Ben Casnocha Popular Books

Reid Hoffman Ben Casnocha Biography & Facts

Reid Garrett Hoffman (born August 5, 1967) is an American internet entrepreneur, venture capitalist, podcaster, and author. Hoffman is the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, a business-oriented social network used primarily for professional networking. He is also Chairman of venture capital firm Village Global and a co-founder of Inflection AI. Early life and education Hoffman was an avid tabletop roleplaying gamer as a child and worked as an editor at the game company Chaosium, then based in Oakland, California near his home. Hoffman attended high school at the progressive Putney School in Vermont, where he engaged in farming activities. He graduated from Stanford University in 1990 with a Bachelor of Science in Symbolic Systems and Cognitive Science. He was awarded a Marshall Scholarship for graduate study abroad, and he earned a Master of Studies (MSt) in philosophy from Wolfson College, Oxford, in 1993. His paternal great-great-great-grandfather was Theophilus Adam Wylie, a Christian Presbyterian minister and Indiana University president pro tempore. Hoffman's uncle, Eric Hoffman, is a writer. Career Early years Hoffman joined Apple Computer in 1994, where he worked on eWorld, an early attempt at building an online service. AOL acquired eWorld in 1996. He later worked at Fujitsu before co-founding his first company, SocialNet.com, in 1997. It focused "on online dating and matching up people with similar interests, like golfers who were looking for partners in their neighborhood." PayPal While at SocialNet, Hoffman was a member of the board of directors during the founding of PayPal. In January 2000, he left SocialNet and joined PayPal full-time as the company's COO. LinkedIn Hoffman co-founded LinkedIn in December 2002 with two former colleagues from SocialNet (including Allen Blue) from his time at Fujitsu. LinkedIn launched on May 5, 2003 as one of the first business-oriented online social networks. Peter Thiel, a colleague of Hoffman's at PayPal, invested in LinkedIn. At the time of LinkedIn's IPO on May 19, 2011, Hoffman owned a stake worth an estimated $2.34 billion, not including any potential benefits from Greylock Partners, where he was named a partner in 2009. Microsoft proposed to acquire LinkedIn on June 13, 2016 for $26.2 billion in cash. Hoffman became a Microsoft board member on March 14, 2017. Artificial Intelligence ventures Hoffman was a founding investor in the artificial intelligence research company OpenAI. In March 2022, it was announced that Hoffman was co-founding a new startup, Inflection AI, with his long-time friend and Greylock colleague Mustafa Suleyman, the co-founder of DeepMind. CNBC reported that "Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Inflection will aim to develop AI software products that make it easier for humans to communicate with computers." On March 3, 2023, Hoffman resigned from his board seat at OpenAI, citing a desire to avoid conflicts of interest between his board seat at OpenAI, investments in AI technology companies via Greylock Partners, and role as founder of Inflection AI. As of May 2023, Hoffman and Greylock Partners have invested in at least 37 AI companies. For example, they were an early investor in Tome, makers of productivity software driven by AI. The company claims it is the fastest productivity software maker to reach 1 million users. Hoffman has dismissed calls to “pause” the development of advanced AI systems, calling such ideas “foolish” and “anti-humanist.” Instead, he has called for the pace of development to be accelerated to help humans solve societal problems. Investing After the PayPal sale to eBay, Hoffman became one of Silicon Valley's most prolific angel investors. Dave Goldberg, former CEO of SurveyMonkey, said that Hoffman "is the person you want to talk to when you are starting a company." In 2009, Hoffman joined Greylock Partners. According to David Kirkpatrick's book The Facebook Effect, Hoffman arranged the first meeting between Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel, which led to Thiel's initial $500,000 angel investment in Facebook. Hoffman invested alongside Thiel in Facebook's first financing round. Since 2009, Hoffman has provided venture capital to dozens of businesses across industries, including consumer and transportation technology, finance, and artificial intelligence. Examples include Airbnb, Aurora Innovation, Taptap Send, and Helion Energy. He served on Zynga's board of directors from March 2008 to June 2014 and currently serves on several public boards, including Aurora, Joby Aviation, and Microsoft. Hoffman has made multiple investments in transportation technology companies, including Aurora, Convoy, Nauto, Nuro, and Joby Aviation, among others. An early advocate for cryptocurrency, Hoffman led Greylock's 2014 Series A financing round in Xapo, a company that developed a bitcoin wallet product. In August 2023, Hoffman said he will not serve as a general partner for Greylock's upcoming funds. He invested in California Forever, a company developing a planned city in Solano County, California. Teaching Hoffman teaches the free Stanford University class, "Blitzscaling". Publications The Start-Up of You Hoffman is co-author, with Ben Casnocha, of the career book The Start-Up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform your Career. The book was released in the United States on February 14, 2012. It argues that individuals should think of themselves as businesses-of-one – the "CEO of their own career" – and draws many parallels between lessons learned from the stories of successful Silicon Valley technology companies and an individual's career. Publishers Weekly reviewed the book positively, saying, "with plenty of valuable guidance relevant to any career stage, this book will help readers not only survive professionally in times of uncertainty but stand out from the pack and flourish." The Economist said that "Hoffman and Casnocha make a number of astute observations about shifts in the world of work." It became both a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. The Alliance Hoffman is co-author, with Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh, of the management book The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age. The book was released in the United States on July 8, 2014. It argues that previous career models of lifetime employment and free agency no longer work in a business world defined by continuous change. Instead, it proposes that employers and employees should think of each other as "allies" and move from a transactional approach to employment to a "relational" one. The book became a New York Times bestseller. Arianna Huffington named The Alliance "the must-read book of the summer" in 2014. A Financial Times review was mixed, noting that those who aren't well-versed on the changing nature of the workplace may find the book useful, but readers looking for more surprising or in-depth insights will be disappointed. Blitzscaling Hoffman is co-.... Discover the Reid Hoffman Ben Casnocha popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Reid Hoffman Ben Casnocha books.