Reid Hoffman
Partner, Greylock · 2 appearances on the record.
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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.
26statements → 1claims → 0claims resolved → 3.92/5average certainty → 2.12/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated → 10said about them ↓
1 not checkable as stated how the 1 claim stands · each chip opens the sources
1 assertion · 2 opinions · 20 insights · 3 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertion are the 1 claim: statements the public record can support or contradict. 0 are resolved, and 1 names 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.
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We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Reid Hoffman on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.
Everything Reid Hoffman said on the Knowledge Project that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Hoffman: Silicon Valley and China are the only places mastering fast OODA loops
“When I kind of go through the entire world, there's basically two places that embody this fighter pilot terminology called an OODA loop, observe, orient, decide, act. It's how fast you make these decisions through this kind of the, this framework, both as indi…”
Hoffman: LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner initially found co-founder Alan Blue disruptive
“One of the things that Jeff came to me and said, hey, I'm finding your co-founder, Alan Blue, to be disruptive. He's not fitting in the scheme in which I'm setting up. And, you know, it's up to me to scale.”
Hoffman: Press sentiment is only lightly correlated with company performance
“Like too often people will be dependent upon the press. Like there's a press good or bad. And actually that, that maybe is only At best, very lightly correlated with whether the company is doing well or poorly.”
Hoffman: Only Silicon Valley and China Embody Rapid OODA Loop Execution
“When I kind of go through the entire world, there's basically two places that embody this fighter pilot terminology called an OODA loop, observe, orient, decide, act. It's how fast you make these decisions through this kind of, this framework, both as individu…”
Hoffman: Only People with Strong Alpha Tendencies Become CEOs
“Generally speaking, you know, like for example, the only people who become CEOs have very strong alpha tendencies. The only people who run for president have very strong alpha tendencies.”
Hoffman: High schools should teach decision-making rather than Calculus II
“When you say, well, should I have calculus two or not? As a way of prepping for this path, the actual, you know, kind of question that you Could actually get to that would be a really good thing to have in all high schools is decision making, right?”
Hoffman: Simple plans are the only ones that spread without distortion
“Simple plans are all that work. Simple plans are all that kind of, you know, simple things are the thing that can most easily spread without distortion within an organization.”
Hoffman: Financing is primarily a mechanism to acquire supportive knowledge networks
“When you think about financing, financing is a way to bring in networks of support and knowledge that Those networks can expose you to, you know, key learnings, key ways to ask questions, key people to collaborate with, key people to hire”
Hoffman: The most common startup CEO mistake is mismanaging hiring cadence
“Probably the most common mistake is where do you get the cadence of hiring, and the fact that you need to be hiring and adjusting. So look, usually when you're moving very quickly and changing your level of scale with a number of employees, it's kind of a temp…”
Hoffman: Strict internal promotion policies create major organizational blind spots
“The people who are religious about like, well, we only promote from within. You know, then have major blind spots, and they're not learning from the really amazing people they can be getting, because there's many, many more smart people and diversity experienc…”
Hoffman: Companies should adapt between memos, slides, and bullet points
“And I actually think the answer is these are all tools and you should use all of them, right? Sometimes you should write like a six pager on something. Sometimes you should write a PowerPoint. Sometimes you should just have a list of bullets, right? And it dep…”
Hoffman: CEOs should use quick bullet lists for board updates
“What I love my CEOs to do in board meetings, Which is to kind of say, what's top of mind, you might just have a bullet list, because the real most important thing there is to just very quickly share what's most current in the CEO's head on, you know, opportuni…”
Hoffman: Competing executives genuinely believe their projects are best for the organization
“It's like when you have two executives who are competing for, Which risks should an organization take? Which project should resources be put into? They're not telling themselves, I'm only competing because if it puts it into mine, then I have a possibility of …”
Hoffman: I Back Founders with Extreme Ambition and Drive
“Like as an investor, I look for people who have Very strong, big ambitions. Because, you know, jump, you know, doing these startup companies is so hard. You have to have that you know, willingness to lose an arm in order to succeed kind of thing. And, you know…”
Hoffman: Board governance is an apprenticeship requiring extensive practice
“Boards are more of a kind of an apprenticeship kind of professional gig versus anything else. And understanding how to do a board well only comes with a lot of repeat practice, which mostly, you know, very few professions. Vendor capital is one of the few that…”
Hoffman: Leaders spend too much time preparing for board meetings
“Too often people spend too much time preparing for board meetings where the real question is, is the right balance of cost to reward in governance and helping the company, right?”
Hoffman: Management failing to brief boards proactively during crisis indicates leadership issues
“If you walk into a board meeting and there's a crisis and you're not presented in a way that's where there's a crisis and, you know, we're doing a briefing for what the crisis is and kind of what our preliminary responses and thoughts are. What our analysis of…”
Hoffman: Board members must bring one unasked question and outside insight per meeting
“One of the, I think, the personal objectives I always have that I also recommend to the board members is to say, well, make sure that you bring at least one really important question that the company may not be thinking about, and bring one new thing from the …”
Hoffman: Only Simple Plans Work and Spread Undistorted at Scale
“Simple plans are all that work. Simple plans are all that kind of, you know, simple things are the thing that can most easily spread without distortion within an organization. And so you want to have a certain simplicity of kind of how you're doing it, even if…”
Hoffman: Leaders should prioritize hiring explicit learners who teach principles
“One of the things that I value in, in people I work with and hire is, is, is being explicit learners, which is you try to learn something in a way that you can explain it to other people as a tool and as a principle.”
Hoffman: Missing winning companies matters more than backing failures in tech investing
“People normally assume that like we say, well, what's your regret? And they presume that your regret is you invested in company X and that failed. And actually, in fact, the more important thing is you missed company Y.”
Hoffman: Passed on investing in Pinterest three times after misunderstanding it
“So when people ask me, you know, like what's your regret as an investor, it's like, well, I was presented Pinterest three times and misunderstood it and didn't invest in it.”
Hoffman: Decisiveness sacrifices short-term options to build great long-term opportunities
“Look, one of the difficult things about making decisions is it reduces opportunity in the short term, but that's the only thing that really creates great opportunity in the long term. So if you don't make decisions, you try to live too much in a kind of a limi…”
Hoffman: Founders should build investor relationships well before fundraising
“One of the pieces of advice that I give entrepreneurs is too often what they do is they go, okay, now I need to raise money. So now I'm going to call Reed and say, now I need to raise money. And it's like, well, the really best way to do this is to with a numb…”
The other half of the tape: Reid Hoffman's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 10 times in 6 episodes on the Knowledge Project. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Mark Pincus 4Mike Maples Jr. 2Seth Godin 1Sarah Tavel 1Garry Tan 1Bret Taylor 1
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
2026 4 mentions in 1 episode
2025 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2021 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2020 2 mentions in 1 episode
Appearances (2)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| Best of 2022: Conversations of the Year | Dec 27, 2022 | 7m |
| Reid Hoffman: Better Decisions, Fewer Mistakes | Sep 20, 2022 | 43m |