Reid Hoffman
Partner, Greylock · 3 appearances on the record.
computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →
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Reid Hoffman was an early executive at PayPal and co-founded LinkedIn before becoming a partner at Greylock, where he participated in early investments in companies like Facebook and Airbnb. He is the founding host of the Masters of Scale podcast and author of books including Blitzscaling and The Start-up of You.
118statements → 47claims → 16claims resolved → 69%fully supported → 3.86/5average certainty → 2.68/5average debate potential → 4.1/5argument clarity · the sources → 126said about them ↓
11 supported 3 partly supported 2 contradicted 8 not yet assessed 23 not checkable as stated how the 47 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
28 predictions · 19 assertions · 27 opinions · 33 insights · 10 disclosures · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 47 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 16 are resolved, 8 are not yet assessed, and 23 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.
The record, in short
What the tape says about how Reid argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.
Their most notable supported claim
ByteDance Will Delay TikTok Action Until After the US Presidential Election
“Likely, and I have no inside information here, I think ByteDance waits for the election, because they presume that Trump could get bought off by investors since, you know, he's a coin-operated person in his entire life, not just as in his presidency.”
Expressed certainty vs assessment result
weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet
Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →
4.1 / 5
directness 4.4 · coherence 4.3 ·
precision 3.9 · compression 3.5
redirected or did not address 2 of 42 assessed questions (5%). Watch them ▸
This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →
How they sound: speaking style how? →
243 words/min while actually speaking · 18.2 um and uh per 1k words · 19 false starts per 1k · 32.8% of pauses land inside a clause
Measured by listening to the audio itself: 21,665 words across 2 episodes of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →
How the interview went all their pushback → series average →
Across 3 rated episodes:
host pushback ▾ 3/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2.3/10
setup questions received 52%
host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 20:27“Is it a bit childish? I don't mean that rudely, but it's like, well, you know, if a child gets, you know, hit at school, it's like the parents saying, well, hit them back harder.” ▶ 15:07“Do you think you can reduce defense budgets, so when you have the global conflicts that we have today?” ▶ 41:12“Do you think that if you are a serial entrepreneur building in AI today, doing a SDR tool for sales teams, You are doing yourself an injustice.” ▶ 1:08“Can you be objective and impartial given your board membership with Microsoft?” ▶ 17:45“Do you think it's a VC investable asset class though?” ▶ 47:22“Do you concede, though, that essentially by voting for Biden, you just vote for a very good administration around him?”
when Reid pushed back ▶ 49:05“By the way, incorrect, but yes. We're not reaching the upper end of LLM.” ▶ 41:38“Um, I think that's a hyperbolic statement.” ▶ 45:25“So I'm glad to say that every single person so far is wrong.” ▶ 47:54“In a two-hour conversation, he was asking questions about AI, he was explaining stuff that was going on in nuanced detail in Israel, you know, he was kind of saying, look, this is …”
Everything Reid Hoffman said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Hoffman: Trump abused state power for personal gain in first term
“Even in the first administration, there was the, there were some abuses of instruments of state for personal gain, for personal power. And that is, I think anti the spirit of anything in democracy, anti the spirit of anything in American.”
Hoffman: Buying Truth Social stock or crypto enables foreign political corruption
“What if foreign actors, Russia, others, were transferring economics to people with political power in order to influence the U.S. And what they're doing? You know, easy ways to do that are like, you know, buy true social stock. Easy ways to do that are buy fre…”
Hoffman: Medicare should eliminate public spending on end-of-life care
“And you go, well, look, there's a whole bunch of money that's spent on these last three to six months of life. Let's reduce the spending on that and say that is not a public, you know, a public expense. And let's increase, like, for example, preventative and o…”
ByteDance Will Delay TikTok Action Until After the US Presidential Election
“Likely, and I have no inside information here, I think ByteDance waits for the election, because they presume that Trump could get bought off by investors since, you know, he's a coin-operated person in his entire life, not just as in his presidency.”
Hoffman: Trade wars will cause a massive drop in U.S. prosperity
“The trade wars will create a massive drop in prosperity in the U.S.”
Hoffman: DOGE has zero chance of cutting $2T without defense cuts
“There is next to zero chance that the missions that they have declared will be successful because the only way to get two trillion out of the budget would be to massively reduce the deficit and reduce defense spending.”
Hoffman: China uses subsidies as mercantile warfare to destroy Western competition
“You're actually, in fact, trying to destroy our industry in the short term so that you can then raise prices later and capture it. That is mercantile warfare. Responding to mercantile warfare is completely fine.”
Hoffman: Prioritizing 'woke AI' is silly and misses AI's real stakes
“Now, the challenges would be is, what if he goes, no, no, the most important issue facing AI is woke AI. Because we have this calling card, which means a whole bunch of different kind of, You know, like, you know, these people are evil and terrible. That's sil…”
Hoffman: US should stop building aircraft carriers vulnerable to $2M hypersonic missiles
“We should not be building aircraft carriers. Aircraft carriers themselves cost billions, The planes on them are more billions. They put, you know, thousands of American lives on them, and in the modern world, you have to, like, sure, an aircraft carrier is gre…”
Hoffman: U.S. Should Ban TikTok Based on Commercial Reciprocity
“The right way, I think, to think about this from an American or any other perspective is to say China bans Competition in China from Meta, Twitter, etc. And so the right way to say is like, look, if you're banning our companies, we should ban yours. Commercial…”
Hoffman: Elon Musk's greatest strength and weakness stem from blind conviction
“Elon has a conviction that he, what he believes is true is absolutely true even when all of the evidence is against his belief, right? And so that allows him to do, I can see that we can colonize Mars, and here we go. Right? And that creates, you know, SpaceX,…”
Hoffman: Distinguish freedom of speech from freedom of reach in media
“The importance of freedom of speech, there's a really interesting distinction between freedom of speech and freedom of reach, right? So, if you're standing at the local corner, and standing on a soapbox, and saying, the moon is made out of blue cheese, and the…”
Hoffman: Media platforms should attach expert determinations to false claims
“Look, if I could, through a democratic process, because I believe in democracies, I believe in collective governance, get our society to agree to say, hey, what we should do is identify some topics that panels of experts can yield To a truth determination on. …”
Hoffman: Blocking tech acquisitions entrenches monopolies by deterring startup funding
“If you want competition with those large companies from startups, Investors, say for example, I'm an investor who's gonna put a billion dollars into a company that might compete with one of the large tech companies. I'm only gonna put the billion dollars in if…”
Reid Hoffman: Twitter is substantially worse post-Elon Musk acquisition
“With deep regret, I would say substantially worse.”
Hoffman predicts Bitcoin will approach $200,000 by the end of 2025
“I would say end of 25, so I'm approaching 200,000.”
Massive Tech Incumbents Funding Risky AI Projects Benefits Society
“And that actually is a feature, not a bug. Like part of the benefit you have is take this AI revolution we're in. Like it's because you have these large companies that can invest in multi-year risky projects that can create things that are massively valuable f…”
Microsoft Board Approved $1B for OpenAI Despite Having No Clear Product
“The very first OpenAI Microsoft deal was, you know, Satya and Kevin Scott brought to the Microsoft board. We want to put a billion dollars into the investment in this vehicle. From a five one C three that doesn't really have any particular plans at making its …”
Hoffman Offered to Cover OpenAI Salaries When Elon Musk Departed
“When Elon had announced to the company that he was leaving and not financing it anymore, and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, Sam called me, and I said, look, I'll cover the salaries, and on, and he asked me if he joined the board, and I said, yes, …”
Sam Altman Over-Indexed on AI Safety Advocates for OpenAI's Board
“I think he was making too much of a AI safety, you know, kind of, who are the most AI safety people, make sure they're on the board.”
Hoffman: LLM scaling continues and larger models will show new magic
“We're not reaching the upper end of LLM. The next large LLM that's training with a larger computer will still have new magic in it. The scale game is still playing.”
The other half of the tape: Reid Hoffman's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 112 times in 55 episodes on 20VC. 14 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 50Lee Hower 8Tomer Cohen 7Elad Gil 4Richard Hanson 3Quentin Clark 3Emilie Choi 3David Sze 3
Statements about Reid Hoffman, by other people (14)
Rabois: LinkedIn developed a mediocre culture because early engineers wanted 35-hour weeks
“Yeah, we didn't have an Olympic work ethic. We had a bunch of French engineers that wanted to work 35 hours a week. At the time, In 2003 to five, when the company was really founded, most people thought the internet was dead, so we didn't, Reid Hoffman, who fo…”
Sahil Lavingia says Reid Hoffman's early launch advice is outdated
“Yeah, I think Reid's quote was accurate maybe 10 years ago when he probably said something like that, but the truth is the bar for where your product needs to be today is so much higher, and yes, you should be embarrassed because I think the best founders will…”
O'Driscoll: Musk and Altman Donated $30M+ and $10M to OpenAI
“You know, Elon shipped in thirty million plus, Sam Altman shipped in 10, Reid Hoffman.”
Barnes: Reid Hoffman Was Sole LP in Sweat Equity Ventures
“He convinced Reid Hoffman to invest in the company. He went out and did the work. He earned equity in amazing companies. That equity is now the portfolio that Reid was the sole LP in.”
Choi: Lateral career moves can trigger exponential career growth
“Sometimes you'll have a situation where you're taking on a lateral move, but if you take on that lateral move and you crush it, you could kind of take things exponentially higher than you would have if you had just been kind of slow and steady up and to the ri…”
Sze: Bonding with Reid Hoffman in China led to LinkedIn investment
“We sat at the back of the bus each time on every stop on this tour through China, and we just mind melded. It was great. We got along so well. We were fast friends, and that led to the investment in LinkedIn and me inviting him to come to Greylock”
Mark Pincus and Reid Hoffman provided Friendster's initial funding
“Reid Hoffman and I got excited about that. We both kind of at the same time discovered Friendster and put up the original money for Friendster, and both started our own networks, LinkedIn and Tribe.”
Nash: Reid Hoffman's handover to Jeff Weiner is the model CEO transition
“You know, Reid Hoffman, who I'm very close with is obviously the founder and has been the person guiding LinkedIn since the get-go, but the way that he brought Jeff Wiener on board and kind of empowered him to run that company I think is a model for how those …”
Hanson: Reid Hoffman stepping down as LinkedIn CEO was smart and selfless
“I did promise that I'd divert everybody to Founders Friday episode two for more on that but my serious answer is going to be Reid Hoffman and I know I mentioned him before with the Alliance, but I think in terms of a founder who, one of the things I really adm…”
Lanng: Reid Hoffman funded any San Francisco startup surviving post-2008
“Like Reed Hoffman, he just walked around in San Francisco and looked for any startup that has survived 2008 and just gave them money.”
Reid Hoffman reframes binary choices with unexpected 'option orange' alternatives
“I would come to Reed and I'll say, Hey, there's option A and option B and help me think for those. And he'll give me option orange that I haven't even thought about before.”
Mark Pincus and Reid Hoffman bought the Six Degrees patent in 2003
“Recognizing the importance of social networking, in 2003, Mark teamed up with his friend, Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, to purchase the fundamental six degrees patent, which broadly covers social networks, in order to keep it out of the hands of paten…”
Gil Penchina: Reid Hoffman is the poster child for paying it forward
“Guys like Reid Hoffman are sort of the poster child for pay it forward. Reid is always helping, you know, anytime you're in a meeting with him, he's taking notes on like the things he's going to do for you.”
Hiring Screen Uses Reid Hoffman's 'Tour of Duty' Framework for Product
“I think it's a very refreshing take on things, and some of the principles that they talk about in that book, like the tour of duty concept of employment, those are some of the principles that we actually have underpinning hiring screens development as a produc…”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
2026 3 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
- Marc Andreessen: Will a16z Go Public & Why Labour Displacement with AI is Wrong? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Elon Musk vs Sam Altman | The Implosion of Thinking Machines | Can VC Survive Public Pricing? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Alex Rampell: The Best Founders Materialise Capital, Customers & Labour | The Future of Venture · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2026, scene by scene →
2025 7 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode
- Mike Maples: Three Frameworks to Evaluate Startups and Founders | E1242 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- George Sivulka, Co-Founder & CEO @Hebbia: The Future of Foundation Models | E1250 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Will Cursor Kill Figma? Lightspeed Raises $9B & OpenAI’s $1B from Disney & #1 App in App Store · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Lovable CEO, Anton Osika: The State of Foundation Models, Grok vs OpenAI, and Replit vs Bolt · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2025, scene by scene →
2024 8 mentions in 6 episodes 1 per episode
- Bret Taylor: Why Pre-Training is for Morons & Companies Will Build Their Own Software | E1209 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Aravind Srinivas:Will Foundation Models Commoditise & Diminishing Returns in Model Performance|E1161 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Kevin Hartz: "How I Lost Airbnb at Seed Because of an Exploding Term Sheet" | E1180 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Saam Motamedi: Why Series B Won’t Make Money & Why $1M ARR is a BS Milestone for Series A | E1177 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Matt Clifford: The Bull & Bear Case for China's Ability to Challenge the US' AI Capabilities | E1172 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Christian Hecker & Johan Brenner: The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN | E1116 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2024, scene by scene →
2023 23 mentions in 8 episodes 3 per episode
- Tomer Cohen: Why LinkedIn Stories Failed; How LinkedIn's Feed Was Born; AI Startups | E1019 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Phin Barnes: The Services Model of Venture Capital is Broken, The Best Founders Do Need Help | E1067 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Christian Lanng: "How Being a Founder Almost Killed Me" | E1065 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Mike Salguero: How I Grew ButcherBox to $600M/year in Revenue; Tips for Influencer Marketing | E998 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Keith Rabois & Mike Shebat: Creating an Olympian Mindset to Work Ethic| E1087 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Howie Liu: Decoding Airtable's $11B Valuation; The Impending AI Revolution in Enterprise | E1053 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Sarah Guo: On Her New $101M Fund; How AI Impacts Inequality; AI Startups vs Incumbents | E1007 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- a16z GP Jeff Jordan: The Ultimate Guide to Two-Sided Marketplaces | 20VC #966 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2023, scene by scene →
2022 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2021 18 mentions in 3 episodes 6 per episode
- 20VC: Greylock's David Sze on His Biggest Lessons Working with Mark Zuckerberg and Reid Hoffman, The Rise of Pre-Emptive Rounds, How To Think Through Price Discipline Today and How Truly Strong Venture Partnerships Function
- 20VC: Coinbase President & COO Emilie Choi on Building Coinbase Ventures into One of the Best Performing Funds with 0 Employees, How Coinbase Thinks Through Internal Resource Allocation and Prioritisation & Why, When and How To Hire Your COO and Head of C
- 20VC: Bill Gurley and Howard Marks: What Happened In 2020? What Can We Expect Looking Forward to 2021?
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
2020 8 mentions in 5 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Lessons From Working with Bill Gates, How To Lead Without Authority and The Difference Between Leadership and Management & How Fundraising Changes In A COVID World with Quentin Clark, Managing Director @ General Catalyst
- 20VC: Sahil Lavingia on Rolling Funds and Their Impact on The Future of Venture, How To Evaluate Market, Team and Product, The Value of Party Rounds & The Pros and Cons of Multi-Stage Funds Investing at Seed
- 20VC: Stitch Fix Founder Katrina Lake on Growth vs Profitability, Her Biggest Lessons From Working with Bill Gurley at Benchmark and The Importance of Mental Flexibility as a Leader
- 20VC: Lessons from Investing in Uber and Airbnb, How To Think Through Bundling vs Unbundling, Late Stage Funds Moving Earlier, Early Stage Funds Moving Later& The Mechanics of Venture That Founders Should Know with Derek Zanutto, General Partner @ Capital
- 20VC: 8VC's Joe Lonsdale on How To Foster Contrarian Thinking Within Venture Partnerships, Why The Best VCs Are Company Builders & Why It Is Not Possible To Build Multi-Billion Dollar Companies and Have Worklife Balance
- every mention in 2020, scene by scene →
2019 3 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
- 20VC Exclusive: Roy Bahat on Bloomberg Beta's New Fund, The Truth About Valuation That Very Few VCs Will Tell You & Why Founders of Venture Backed Startups Make The Best Angels
- 20VC: Cameo's Steven Galanis on Why You Must Fall In Love With Your Mission Not Your Product, How To Extract As Much Value From Your Investor Base As Possible & Should You Really Hire For 6 Months Ahead of What You Need?
- 20VC: Why Every Company Looks One Round Earlier Than It Should Be, Why Investors Don't Understand Term Sheet Psyche & How The Brand Behind The Investor Can Overweight The Attention Their Opinion Is Given with Assaf Wand, Founder & CEO @ Hippo
- every mention in 2019, scene by scene →
2018 13 mentions in 7 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Elad Gil's High Growth Handbook on The Commonalities of The Truly Great CEOs, How To Hire The Very Best Execs, Why Cash is A Defensible Moat Today & The Pros and Cons of M&A and IPOs
- 20VC: Being A Wartime Leader in a Time of Peace, Why Marketing Channel Diversification Is Like The Life of A Scientist and Why Small and Mighty Beats Loud and Weak with Ooshma Garg, Founder & CEO @ Gobble
- 20VC: LinkedIn's Head of Corp Dev on Why and When Startups Should Start Relationship Building With Corp Dev, What The Structure of M&A Traditionally Looks Like & How To Mitigate The Biggest Risk of M&A, Integration Risk
- 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Always Be Raising, How To Build Relationships with VCs In A Condensed Timeframe, Why The Founder To VC Relationship Is Not Like A Marriage with Dave Vasen, Founder & CEO @ Brightwheel
- 20VC: Index's Danny Rimer on His Biggest Lessons On Price, Ownership, Board Dynamics & Building Consumer Businesses from Backing The Likes of King, Skype, Farfetch, Glossier and more...
- 20VC: Benchmark's Sarah Tavel on Why Investing Success Lies In Small Markets Adjacent To Very Large Ones, Why You Have To Be Judicious On When To Pay Up vs Be More Price Sensitive & Why Crypto Investing Is Like The Early Days of AdTech Investing
- 20VC: Why The Current Crop Of VC Does Not Understand Design, Why Product Market Fit Is A Liquid Not A Solid & How Graduates Can Optimise Their Career for Personal Development with Steve Vassallo, General Partner @ Foundation Capital
- every mention in 2018, scene by scene →
2017 13 mentions in 5 episodes 3 per episode
- 20VC: Why Valuation Is Of Critical Importance At Seed, How To Understand Innovation Cycles & Having 3 CEOs and Burning $10m a Month with Lee Hower, Co-Founder @ NextView Ventures
- 20VC: What Larry Paige, Mary Meeker and Ben Horowitz All Have In Common, Why You Have To Build A Movement Not A Brand & Why This Really Is A Great Time To Be An Entrepreneur with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds
- 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC"
- 20VC: VC of The Year: Forerunner's Kirsten Green on 2 $Bn+ Exits in 1 Year, Why We Are In The Very Early Innings For Commerce & How Brand Has Fundamentally Changed Over The Last Decade
- 20VC: Preparing For The Next Big Trend, Why Conversational Will Be The Next Big Thing & How Entrepreneurs Should View Market Size with Sarah Guo @ Greylock Partners
- every mention in 2017, scene by scene →
2016 10 mentions in 6 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC FF 028: Where To Start Your Startup and Single Founder vs Co-Founder Model with Richard Hanson, Co-Founder & CEO @ HiringScreen
- 20VC: Why More People Should Be Entrepreneurs & How Do You Know When You Are Ready with Matt Clifford @ Entrepreneur First
- 20VC: Greylock's Josh Elman on Why We Are Not In A Consumer Downturn, The Next Wave Of Social and What Twitter Should Do Next
- 20VC: 500 Startups' Dave McClure on Whether Unicorns Are Necessary For Venture Returns & Why Ownership Is Not The Math To Think About When Investing
- 20VC: Wealthfront's Adam Nash on What Makes Great CEO's & Why Humans Suck At Investing
- Index's Martin Mignot on Sourcing Rocketship Companies, Evaluating Founders and His Attitude Towards Risk At The Early Stage
- every mention in 2016, scene by scene →
2015 4 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
- 20 VC 033: The Pros and Cons of Venture Capital, Atomico and Entrepreneurship with Chris Dark, President International @ C2FO
- 20 VC 082: 500 Startups Week: Growth Hacking 101: How To 10x Your Conversion with Matt Lerner, Head of Distro Dojo London
- 20 VC 064: Finding Exceptional People with Big Ideas with Nick Beim, Partner @ Venrock
- every mention in 2015, scene by scene →
Appearances (3)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn & Paypal Founder: Trump Administration, Elon Musk and DOGE | E1239 | Dec 16, 2024 | 48m |
| Reid Hoffman: The Future of TikTok and The Inflection AI Deal | E1163 · 20VC with Harry St | Jun 10, 2024 | 1h 4m |
| 20VC: Reid Hoffman on Investing in Airbnb and Passing on Stripe, The Different Styles of T | Dec 7, 2020 | 34m |