Reid Hoffman

From Grokipedia

Reid Garrett Hoffman (born August 5, 1967) is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and author, most notable for co-founding LinkedIn in 2002 and serving as its executive chairman until Microsoft acquired the company for $26.2 billion in 2016. Born in Palo Alto, California, and raised in Berkeley by attorney parents, Hoffman graduated from Stanford University with a B.S. in symbolic systems and later earned an M.Sc. in philosophy from the University of Oxford. Early roles at Apple and Fujitsu preceded his founding of SocialNet and contributions to PayPal's growth; since 2009, as a Greylock Partners partner, he has invested in high-profile startups like Airbnb and an early Facebook round, amassing significant influence in Silicon Valley technology ecosystems. Hoffman co-founded Inflection AI in 2022 and has authored books including Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies, emphasizing rapid scaling strategies for tech firms. His political engagement, marked by multimillion-dollar donations to Democratic PACs and candidates—including $35,390,504 in the 2024 election cycle—has focused on opposing Donald Trump, including funding private litigation against him, prompting criticisms of undue billionaire influence on legal and electoral processes amid broader concerns over tech sector alignment with progressive causes.

In brief

Hoffman thought work itself needed a social graph. LinkedIn made that graph a default, then made him independently wealthy enough to fund the next wave.

He now writes, invests, and starts companies at the seam of software and intelligence. The Rolodex was always the product.