Reid Hoffman

Reid Hoffman (born August 5, 1967, in Palo Alto, California) is one of the most influential figures in Silicon Valley, known both as a serial founder and a leading early-stage investor. He earned a bachelor's degree with distinction in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University and a master's degree in Philosophy from Oxford University, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar. He has since received honorary doctorates from Babson University and the University of Oulu.

Hoffman was an executive vice president and a founding-team member at PayPal before co-founding LinkedIn in 2003, the professional networking service that now has more than one billion members (acquired by Microsoft in 2016 for ~$26B). In parallel, he became one of the most prolific angel investors of his era, writing early checks into Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, Zynga, and Airbnb before formally turning professional. He joined Greylock Partners as a Partner in 2009.

At Greylock, Hoffman focuses on early-stage investing in products that can reach hundreds of millions of participants, building on his thesis that network effects and marketplaces are the foundation of iconic, scalable businesses. He is the co-author of several books — including *The Start-Up of You*, *The Alliance*, *Blitzscaling*, and *Superagency* — and hosts the *Masters of Scale* and *Possible* podcasts.

Beyond investing, Hoffman has been deeply involved in the AI wave. He was an early backer of OpenAI when it was still a nonprofit, co-founded Inflection AI (2022) with Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan, and in 2025 co-founded Manas AI, a cancer drug-discovery startup. He sits on the boards of Microsoft, Aurora, Entrepreneur First, Inflection, and Nauto, and serves on numerous nonprofit boards including Endeavor, the CZI Biohub, the Berggruen Institute, Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered AI, and the MacArthur Foundation's Lever for Change.

• Network effects above all. In his own words: *"Networks and marketplaces are central to all of my investing and thinking. They are foundational to scaling businesses that reach hundreds of millions of people."*
• Blitzscaling. He prioritizes speed over efficiency in conditions of uncertainty — backing companies that can grow fast enough to establish network effects before competitors, then move from "startup" to "scaleup" at a furious pace.
• Massive addressable scale. Targets products that can reach hundreds of millions of users; consumer behavior and viral/marketplace dynamics are central to his diligence.
• Heavy AI conviction. As of 2023, Hoffman and Greylock had invested in at least 37 AI companies — a systematic bet that AI will create the next generation of network-effect businesses. Recent focus extends into AI for healthcare and drug discovery.
• Early stage. Comfortable from inception/seed onward, often as a founder-investor and active board member rather than a passive check.