Reid Hoffman
219 statements across 65 episodes · 96 bullish · 41 bearish · 8 people on the record · first statement Oct 6, 2017 by Reid Hoffman · said 1 times in 1 episodes since 2026 · across every show →
On the record as a speaker too: Reid Hoffman's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
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brought up most by Jeff Berman (1)
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2026 1 mention in 1 episode
Everything said about Reid Hoffman, oldest first
Oct 6, 2017 positive
Oct 6, 2017 positive
Mar 12, 2019 positive
Mar 12, 2019 positive
Hoffman: Cultivating diverse viewpoints drastically increases chances of discovering new industries
“When your group embraces diversity of all kinds, when you actively cultivate different viewpoints and different approaches to problem solving, you immeasurably increase your chances of uncovering not just new ideas, but new industries, new opportunities, and n…”
Oct 9, 2019 positive
Economic security makes populations more welcoming toward immigrants
“The creation of good and fulfilling middle-class jobs is one of the most important goals we can collectively focus on.
Because when people feel more safe and secure in their economics, they feel there's a good future in front of them.
And they tend to be more …”
Nov 21, 2019 negative
Nov 21, 2019 bullish
Nov 21, 2019 negative
Hoffman: Extreme capital efficiency is a mortal risk in competitive markets
“There's a potential mortal risk in being conservative. You might think you're best serving your investors by being as efficient with capital as possible, but that's actually not true. You reward your investors by creating a successful company, and raising only…”
Nov 21, 2019 negative
Hoffman passed on Stripe and Square due to PayPal 'curse of knowledge'
“You know, there are some great payments companies out there, Stripe, Square, et cetera, that I talked to very early and couldn't bring myself to kind of lean in to do, despite world-class great entrepreneurs, note to self, mistake, right? Because I was going, …”
Nov 24, 2020 positive
Nov 24, 2020 positive
Hoffman: Evaluate the quality of investor rejections, not just the quantity
“You have to pay attention to the quality, not the quantity of rejections. You want to see at least a teeny minority of investors squirm. You don't have to get them to a yes, but you should detect some friction as they reason their way to a no.”
Nov 24, 2020
May 4, 2021 positive
Hoffman: Hiring an employee brings their network for future hiring and partnerships
“When you hire a person, you also hire their network. When a new job opens, they'll refer their friends. When you need partnerships, they'll open doors. The powerful connection of that initial group of hires shouldn't be underestimated.”
May 4, 2021
May 4, 2021 positive
Hoffman: Breakout companies map interview questions directly back to desired culture
“You have to map back from the kind of company you want to build, to the qualities your employees should have, to the questions you should ask candidates. Almost every breakout company will have a formula that matches culture to hiring.”
May 4, 2021 neutral
May 4, 2021
Jun 11, 2021
Hoffman: Scaling organizations become naturally resistant to massive swings to protect built ground
“But when an organization scales, the more resistant to big swings and massive change it becomes. Because now there's ground you could lose. You still want to be open to experimentation, but not so much that it breaks what you've already built.”
Jun 11, 2021 positive
Jun 14, 2021 negative
Hoffman: Founders focus too much on valuation over 10-year partnership value
“All too frequently, founders choose investors based on who seems to be most excited or who's paying the highest price. But what you should be focused on is which investor, which network, which partnership maximizes your chances of success 10 years out.”
Jun 14, 2021 neutral
Hoffman: Investors must back founders they can leave alone for five years
“That being said, the investment criteria that I apply is, would I give this person the money and walk away and say, Five years from now, how did it go? Because it's about the entrepreneur's journey, not yours, not I, as an entrepreneur, can make this successfu…”
Jun 14, 2021 positive
Hoffman: Investors should back childhood entrepreneurs over childhood coders
“My actual belief in that, especially when you get to the whole world and not just Silicon Valley technology businesses, is you actually want to invest in people who started entrepreneurship early. They understand they started hustling just like you.”
Jun 14, 2021 negative
Jun 24, 2021 positive
Nov 30, 2021 positive
Nov 30, 2021 positive
Nov 30, 2021 neutral
Nov 30, 2021
Nov 30, 2021
Dec 21, 2021 positive
Hoffman: Preparation enables leaders to capitalize on unpredictable opportunities
“When it comes to strategic patience, being in the right place at the right time isn't something you need to leave up to chance. There are often steps you can take in the direction of your goal, knowing you can't predict when the opportunity will strike.”
Dec 21, 2021
Dec 21, 2021 negative
Hoffman: Scaling without horizontal culture creates competitive disadvantage
“When you're scaling, if you don't have the horizontal culture, your culture will not scale, and then that will become a competitive disadvantage because it's very hard and takes a lot of energy to refactor culture, and that's part of the reason why everyone te…”
Jan 19, 2022 negative
Jan 19, 2022
Jan 19, 2022 positive
Hoffman: Founders should never stop personally recruiting as their company scales
“Recruiting is a constant drumbeat, and that goes extra when you're hiring at scale. That's why I believe you should always be recruiting. The more your business scales, the more tempting will be to delegate this task to others. Resist that urge, and never stop…”
Jan 19, 2022
Hoffman: New leaders must evolve the business, not preserve the status quo
“The guiding principle to finding any new leader at any level within your company is to answer the question, will this person move the business to match the evolution of the market? The answer, 99 times out of a hundred, should be yes. It's very rare that you w…”
Jan 19, 2022 negative
Apr 19, 2022 positive
Reid Hoffman argues that altruism and a strong ego can coexist
“People always have these false dichotomies. They say, well, you know, altruism, you have to have no ego. It's like, no, no, no. Actually, in fact, part of how I think about myself is great and unusual and differentiated, because by the way, differentiated is p…”
Apr 19, 2022
Hoffman: Founders should adapt to investors rather than demanding absolute authenticity
“People often misinterpret authentic as, I shouldn't change a thing about me, no matter who I'm talking to, I'm me, deal with it. But I do not recommend that as a strategy when pitching investors or onboarding clients. A critical part of authenticity is being s…”
Apr 19, 2022
Hoffman: A Separate Personal Brand Enables Pivots When Businesses Fail
“It's in moments like this where it becomes very clear why it's important to maintain a personal brand separate and distinct from your company. When something like COVID hits, an entire business can be crushed in a matter of weeks. But your personal brand is st…”
May 3, 2022 positive
May 3, 2022 negative
May 3, 2022
Hoffman: Scaled organizations naturally reject handcrafted innovations unless protected
“And so what you need to do as a founder is be extremely choiceful about which handcrafted innovation you choose and how you protect it organizationally. You need to protect it, because the natural reaction of the scale organization will be to kill it.”
May 3, 2022
Hoffman: Founders must discern mass-market feedback from misleading edge cases
“It's essential to seek out and listen to user feedback, but the caveat is, you have to figure out which users to listen to. You're going to have different kinds of users giving you feedback, and some of it will take you in the wrong direction. So you need to e…”
May 3, 2022
May 3, 2022 negative
Hoffman: Startups lacking passionate early user feedback are likely off track
“It is typical to get very detailed feedback from some of your early users, and if you're not getting some people who say, this is super important to me. I love this. I really need this to work well. It usually means you're off track.”
Mar 15, 2023
Hoffman: Productive conflict requires open debate without diffusing decision authority
“In other words, if you want to have disagreement to lead to action instead of more disagreement, it helps to have an agreed upon structure in place first that doesn't prevent someone in the mail room from challenging an idea from the C-suite. It just means it'…”
Mar 15, 2023 positive
Hoffman: Founders should ask what is wrong with their idea, not what people think
“The advice I always give founders is don't ask people what they think about your idea. Ask them what's wrong with your idea. Invite them to poke holes in it because you want to find those holes before you bring your idea into the world.”
Mar 17, 2023 positive
Mar 17, 2023 neutral
Hoffman: Startups that fail to move faster than big companies die
“Part of the reason that there's a focus on relentless pace is because more or less a slow moving startup is dead, right? So it's a key portion for the success of startups that they're speedy, that they're fast. If they're not faster than big companies, they're…”
Mar 17, 2023 negative
Mar 17, 2023
Hoffman: Even Facebook and Airbnb faced existential 'valleys of the shadow'
“All startups go through a valley of the shadow. All of them, PayPal, LinkedIn, things that I've done personally, things that I've invested in, Facebook, Airbnb, all have valleys of the shadow where you're like, why did we think this was a good idea?”
Mar 17, 2023 negative
Mar 17, 2023
Hoffman: A founder cannot succeed without being obsessive about their company
“A founder cannot succeed unless they're obsessed with their company. And so part of being obsessed with a company means that it's what they think about on Saturday morning. It's what they think about when they end up with, you know, a 15 minutes spare, you kno…”
Mar 31, 2023 neutral
Mar 31, 2023 positive
Hoffman: Operational unforced errors are fine during rapid growth
“What's important about this story is that it's full of unforced errors, and I would argue that those errors are fine, so long as you're pursuing a massive growth opportunity. When you're moving fast, you can't say, oh, we're going to study this for six months,…”
Mar 31, 2023
Hoffman: Leaders letting fires burn must show teams neglect is deliberate
“When you're letting a fire burn, it's not simply up to you to wage a lonely battle with your own nerves. Your team may start to get the sense that, like the band on the Titanic, you're fiddling while the ship sinks. You have to show them that yes, you see the …”
Mar 31, 2023
Hoffman: Early PayPal had three support reps and neglected 10,000 monthly emails
“Back in PayPal's early days, we neglected customer complaints, even as users grew exponentially. And because we had a customer service department of three people, we quickly started going in the hole around 10,000 emails a month.”
Mar 31, 2023 positive
Mar 31, 2023 positive
Mar 31, 2023 negative
Mar 31, 2023
Apr 21, 2023
Apr 28, 2023
Apr 28, 2023 positive
May 5, 2023 positive
May 5, 2023 positive
May 5, 2023 positive
May 10, 2023 positive
May 10, 2023 positive
Hoffman: Silicon Valley startup networks can take root anywhere with pay-it-forward founders
“Every successful founding team at Google, Facebook, wherever, spawns its own little network, and there's nothing magical about the networks in Silicon Valley. They can take root just about anywhere that you have a few successful entrepreneurs willing to pay it…”
May 10, 2023 positive
Hoffman: Corporate incumbents survive long-term by nurturing startups, not crushing them
“If you're a big fish, like those magnets sitting around that table with Linda in Mexico City, you need the little fish. Paradoxically, your long-term survival depends on feeding them instead of eating them. Because a flourishing business ecosystem needs entrep…”
May 10, 2023 bullish
May 10, 2023 bearish
May 12, 2023
May 19, 2023 neutral
May 19, 2023
Jul 19, 2023
Hoffman: LinkedIn invented its Series A revenue model in one evening
“At the time, potential Series A investors wanted to see a business model that showed how LinkedIn would get to profitability. I told potential investors that we weren't going to generate any revenue until after the next round of financing, and that therefore i…”
Jul 19, 2023 positive
Jul 26, 2023 bearish
Hoffman: Super Bowl ads are a generic mistake for startups
“I frequently get pitched on, oh, we should go do a Superbowl ad, right? Because it's like, well, let's say it's your debutante moment and, you know, everyone will pay attention to you. And I'm usually like, ah, that's totally vanilla. Don't do that. That's the…”
Jul 28, 2023
Jul 28, 2023
Jul 28, 2023 neutral
Systrom: Founders naturally gravitate toward central roles like goalie or DJ
“When I did sports as a kid, I was the goalie. When I played baseball, I was the pitcher. Like I always wanted to be in the center of it and not controlling it, but I wanted to be in the center of it. And the DJ is kind of the same thing, right? So the early gl…”
Aug 2, 2023 positive
Hoffman: Pricing at a steep loss early on can save your startup
“And in your company's early days, I'd argue it's more important to get users in the door, even when you're taking a very steep loss. But when you ultimately need to change the price, They'll grumble for sure. A few might storm out, but if you brought enough of…”
Aug 2, 2023
Aug 2, 2023
Aug 2, 2023 neutral
Aug 2, 2023
Aug 2, 2023 neutral
Hoffman: Giveaways bleed a startup without a clear conversion path to paying users
“There's no faster way to get a lot of people in the door than with a giveaway. But if those freebie seekers don't convert to paying customers, then you're just left with hemorrhaging. For the price that bleeds your business to save your business, you need a co…”
Aug 2, 2023 positive
Hoffman: Customer pricing riots subside if core invaluable service is protected
“You have to know what is it about your service that your customers find invaluable. Protect that, and that's the only promise that really matters. Pricing riots die down, and if you have a service that customers really love, they are eventually going to let yo…”
Aug 2, 2023
Aug 2, 2023
Aug 2, 2023 neutral
Hoffman: Building products for virtuous habits is harder than tapping vices
“Most entrepreneurs take the easier path to scale. They play to our vices, because vices are actually much stronger than the virtues. So for example, convincing someone to floss Or convincing someone to go exercise is actually much, much harder than to convince…”
Aug 4, 2023
Aug 4, 2023
Aug 4, 2023
Aug 4, 2023
Hoffman: Staff turnover during a company pivot is necessary for momentum
“It's a hard certainty that when you change your organization's momentum, not everyone will want to stay. And that's a good thing, because to keep the momentum up, you need to find people that not only agree with the new momentum, but will help define it and dr…”
Aug 9, 2023 positive
Hoffman: Founders should treat customers as scouts by observing actions and words
“One of the best ways to do this is to treat your customers as your scouts. Take your cue not only from what they say, but also from what they do. Build your ability to interpret what they really want, and then make sure you're primed to act on this feedback as…”
Aug 9, 2023 neutral
Hoffman: Over-reacting to customer statements risks product focus and incorrect direction
“If you're too reactive to what your customers say, then you can lose focus on your core product. If you listen to too many customers, then you'll spread yourself too thin trying to be all things to all people. And if you listen only to what people say, And not…”
Aug 21, 2023 positive
Hoffman: Scaling compute drove AI breakthroughs, not a new intelligence algorithm
“While there have been various algorithmic and technique improvements, it wasn't like we suddenly discovered the intelligence algorithm. It's actually, in fact, how do we get thousands of compute units, but by getting that scale compute, you started generating …”
Aug 21, 2023 negative
Hoffman: Elon Musk's AI Pause Petition Was Intellectually Dishonest
“Well, Elon's in particular was signing this six month pause letter while trying to hire people and buy as much compute and get going as fast as possible. Everyone else slow down so I can catch up. That's not intellectually honest.”
Aug 21, 2023 negative
Aug 21, 2023 bearish
Hoffman: Sudden leap in AI intelligence is quite unlikely
“Do we know if it's going to suddenly become, you know, much more intelligent? It's like, well, I can't guarantee it's not going to, although it seems quite unlikely, and it seems that there's a bunch of stuff under our control and people asking the right quest…”
Aug 21, 2023 negative
Hoffman: Proposing a six-month AI pause is like refusing word processors
“I'm hearing a whole bunch of, we should have a six month pause. And I kind of don't understand that you have to learn these tools. It's kind of like saying, I'm going to be a writer and I'm not going to use a word processor. I'm going to be a graphic designer …”
Aug 21, 2023 negative
Aug 21, 2023 negative
Aug 21, 2023 neutral
Aug 29, 2023 positive
Aug 29, 2023 bullish
Sep 12, 2023 positive
Hoffman: Founders should take essential intrinsic risks and avoid extraneous risks
“Some like say, okay, I'll take a little risk. And then I try to take as little risk as possible. That's generally a mistake. What you want to do is you want to say, well, okay, which risks are intrinsic to this entrepreneurial path? And then I will take those …”
Sep 12, 2023
Hoffman: Founders should tackle existential risks before peripheral ones
“In fact, I'd say when you're assessing your risks, you actually want to take on the ones that are most central to killing you as early as possible. If you're worrying about peripheral risks without addressing the essential ones, it's like worrying about what m…”
Sep 12, 2023 positive
Hoffman: Founding teams need contrasting risk mindsets to avoid bad bets
“If you're a company of gung ho risk takers, every opportunity is going to look dazzling. And you may end up chasing bad bets. If your team is ultra cautious and risk averse, Every new idea will seem like a disaster waiting to strike. It's like the old adage. I…”
Sep 12, 2023 positive
Sep 22, 2023 negative
Hoffman: Forcing acquired teams into corporate conformity is self-defeating
“It's really self-defeating to take on a new team only to tell them, forget what made you special. Do it our way. It's on you to see how the acquisition contributes to your elevated mission, and then unite this new team under it.”
Sep 29, 2023 negative
Hoffman: The Six-Month AI Pause Letter Is 'Laughable' and Wrong
“Most of the folks who go concerns, go everything from the relatively laughable and silly six-month pause letter, which is kind of like wrong in its theory of human nature, wrong in its theory of technological development, wrong in its theory, like, just kind o…”
Sep 29, 2023 negative
Hoffman: Obsessing Over Robot Overlords Increases the Likelihood of Dystopia
“One of the places where the most of the existential risk people are doing a disservice and causing an increased likelihood of dystopia is that by focusing on kind of future robot overlords versus how human beings use this technology, Including, by the way, cri…”
Sep 29, 2023 bullish
Hoffman: Governments Attempting to Slow Big Tech AI Are Misguided
“If you listen to the press and listen to the committees of people that are like, oh, we should slow these big tech companies down. It's like, well, actually, in fact, That's a bad participation because we have line of sight to a medical assistant, a tutor, you…”
Sep 29, 2023 positive
Oct 11, 2023 positive
Hoffman: Inflection's Pi learns per user without sharing private prompts
“Pi enters a data store that is only accessed during your interaction. If someone else were to ask Pi who the first guest on Master the Scale was, it might still get the answer wrong. That's because the model improves for you as an individual user without shari…”
Oct 21, 2023
Hoffman: Org charts should be designed by decomposing the CEO's long-term problem
“If you take some years out, five, 10 years out, and you say, okay, how do I decompose the CEO's problem of solving this business problem? Into a set of other jobs of people who are helping the CEO. What is the shape of that long-term problem look like? And tha…”
Oct 21, 2023 neutral
Oct 21, 2023
Hoffman: Specific Questions Make Mentors Far More Likely to Respond
“Simply having the courage to reach out to people for advice is not enough. You need to know who you want to talk to and why. If you can come at them with specific questions, they're more likely to respond, and you're more likely to get something of value.”
Oct 21, 2023 neutral
Oct 27, 2023
Oct 31, 2023 negative
Hoffman: Debating AI existential risk distracts from immediate safety issues
“By spending too much time debating the existential risk of AI, we actually increase the likelihood that AI will help bring about a dystopian future. The long-term conversation is doing a disservice to the immediate issues that we face.”
Nov 7, 2023 bullish
Hoffman: GPT-4 is already superintelligent due to breadth across domains
“We already have super intelligence. GBD-IV is super intelligent. That doesn't mean, for example, if you say, okay, GBD-IV, tell Reid Hoffman how to better invest in artificial intelligence or craft good artificial intelligence that'll say anything that the exp…”
Nov 7, 2023 bullish
Hoffman: Framing AI primarily as an existential threat is naive
“And one of the things I think is naive about that statement and the reason I didn't sign it is because while it can be an existential risk, just like, you know, for example, you create nuclear power and nuclear weapons or an existential risk, it is also one of…”
Nov 7, 2023 bearish
Hoffman: AI will transform search and reduce traditional search usage
“Well, I think it definitely transforms the search industry. And I think that once people start using it, they use search overall less. And part of the reason that's very straightforward, which is sometimes you're looking for an answer, not 10 blue links.”
Nov 7, 2023 bullish
Hoffman: Text-to-speech will soon allow selecting contextual voice personas
“Now, part of it is, you know, next year I suspect it'll just be upload text file, Get which version of the Reed voice you want. Do you want the Masters of Scale Reed voice? Do you want the Fireside Chat Reed voice? Do you want the Reed Hoffman doing his, you k…”
Nov 10, 2023 positive
Nov 10, 2023 neutral
Hoffman: Ethical startup pirates break rules but follow a strong moral code
“While all startups have pirate-like qualities, scrappiness, inventiveness, rule-breaking, there's a difference between ethical pirates and criminal pirates. Ethical pirates may ignore conventional rules, but they're driven by their own strong moral code.”
Nov 24, 2023 neutral
Nov 24, 2023 neutral
Nov 24, 2023 positive
Hoffman: Founders must shape online community culture from day one
“I believe that every founder of an online community has a responsibility to shape the culture from day one, because the tone you set is the tone you're going to keep. Your first users and the tone of their first interactions will set the norms for the entire c…”
Nov 24, 2023
Nov 24, 2023 positive
Hoffman: Passing on Etsy's angel round cost a 20x to 50x return
“And so part of the mistake was, you know, when she presented to me, it was before it was venture invested, right? I could have put in money essentially as an angel. And, you know, I don't know what Etsy's valuation is today, two billion dollars, something like…”
Nov 24, 2023 neutral
Dec 5, 2023 positive
Dec 5, 2023 positive
Dec 5, 2023
Hoffman: Scaling bottlenecks signal outdated processes that outlived their usefulness
“Bottlenecks can be hard to spot, especially as you scale, but it's important that you do spot them and resolve them. They're a sign that there's a deeper problem with the processes you've established in your company. Some of these will be conscious processes t…”
Dec 11, 2023 negative
Hoffman: Founders often fail by ignoring real-life user utility
“This term IRL or in real life is also an important one to keep in mind as an entrepreneur. It will help you avoid a classic mistake of entrepreneurship. Falling in love with a product or service that you imagine will be a huge success without taking account of…”
Dec 12, 2023 negative
Hoffman: LinkedIn deliberately avoided scaling around early 'LION' superfan networkers
“It's important to note, in the early days of LinkedIn, some of our initial superfans, the LinkedIn Open Networkers, or Lions, contributed real value, but also created a negative spam-like culture in corners of the platform. No matter how enthusiastic those use…”
Dec 12, 2023 positive
Dec 29, 2023 negative
Hoffman: Founders recreating extreme crisis pressure suffer from survivorship bias
“Just because you pulled off a feat with an insane degree of difficulty doesn't mean you need to recreate those same conditions to succeed. Sounds obvious, right? But too often, founders come away from a close call thinking that constant extreme pressure is the…”
Jan 16, 2024 positive
Hoffman: Amplifying customer stories builds lasting brand trust and loyalty
“Because the best way to invite people into the story of your product is to give them a platform to share their own stories. That's why I believe you need to amplify the unique stories of your community and your customers. Doing so will build a foundation of tr…”
Jan 30, 2024
Hoffman: The biggest ideas must be contrarian to create market space
“The first truth of entrepreneurship and investing is that the very big ideas are contrarian, because the contrarian is part of the reason why a bunch of large companies and competitors haven't already done it, why a bunch of other entrepreneurs haven't already…”
Jan 30, 2024 positive
Jan 30, 2024
Jan 30, 2024 positive
Hoffman: Founders should look for investors who squirm while rejecting them
“You have to pay attention to the quality, not the quantity of rejections. You want to see at least a teeny minority of investors squirm. You don't have to get them to a yes, but you should detect some friction as they reason their way to a no.”
Jan 30, 2024 positive
Jan 30, 2024 positive
Jan 30, 2024 positive
Feb 9, 2024 positive
Feb 9, 2024
Hoffman: Business competition inherently requires strategic deception and information gaps
“There is no competitive game that doesn't involve some deception. The same thing is broadly true in business too, because like which product am I going to launch? Which partnership am I going to use to do that? What do I think is the right way to compete with …”
Feb 9, 2024 positive
Hoffman: I prioritize investing in and hiring 'explicit learners'
“One thing that I've I highly prioritize in putting together teams and people I invest in is what I call explicit learners. Not only people who keep learning, infinite learners, but explicit learners because they learn things that they can share with their fell…”
Apr 24, 2024 bullish
Hoffman: Scaling AI compute will yield massive progress regardless of AGI
“Whether or not you think AGI is, is high probability, medium probability, low probability, wherever you are in that spectrum, you will be creating really interesting increases in cognitive capability of these systems. Say they can't raise seven trillion or not…”
Apr 24, 2024 bearish
Apr 24, 2024 negative
Apr 24, 2024 negative
Apr 28, 2024 positive
Hoffman: Re-founders invest for 3 to 10 years out, not quarterly numbers
“Part of what you're doing as a CEO is you're saying, I'm investing in things now that will pay, that will start bearing fruit three to 10 years from now. You're lucky as a CEO if you get to do one of them. That's part of how you can tell like a re-founder, bec…”
Apr 28, 2024
Hoffman: Founders cannot simply hand authority to successor CEOs
“You can't just give it to them. It has to be a kind of a, not quite as direct as a relay baton, but because it's kind of like the relay baton, you're like, Putting it in the person's hand as fast as possible. It's like, but you're kind of going, you should wea…”
Apr 28, 2024 neutral
Apr 28, 2024 negative
Hoffman: I accidentally undermined Dan Nye during LinkedIn's CEO transition
“Completely unintentionally, and obviously smart enough to not be doing it in any oblique, direct way, but essentially undermining Dan because I wasn't allowing those neural Pathways to reconnect. And so, and that's part of the reason I think, you know, we didn…”
Apr 28, 2024 positive
Hoffman prefers unproven CEOs with a refounder mindset over proven executives
“If you said, well, I could have a CEO, With maybe who's a little less proven, but has the refounding mindset, you know or I can have a CEO who's proven, but doesn't have the refounding mindset. Personally, I would always opt for the refounding mindset, right?”
Apr 28, 2024 neutral
Hoffman: Acquiring Lynda.com was not a priority he would have chosen
“Jeff was focused on education. So bought Linda. At that point, we'd already had enough of established relationship that I was like, look, this isn't the thing I would choose to do, but if this is yours, This is the thing that is too often under described in MB…”
May 23, 2024 bullish
May 23, 2024 negative
Reid Hoffman says fear dominates the public debate on AI digital twins
“So the idea was obviously most of the time that people have been talking about digital twins, most of that discussion has been in the fear and, oh my God, it's going to be the end of Hollywood and All this disaster and storm is coming.”
May 23, 2024 positive
May 23, 2024 neutral
May 23, 2024 positive
Reid Hoffman says AI-generated text requires no more attribution than human speechwriters
“Because by the way, I sometimes have somebody who writes a speech for me and I give the speech. And no, I don't go, and by the way, sentence X was from Susan and sentence Y was from Bob. You know, I go, okay, I'm giving the speech, and I've worked with a team …”
May 23, 2024
May 23, 2024 positive
Masters of Scale requires human scripting and Reid Hoffman's approval for AI
“One of the ways that we're putting guardrails on the use of the technology is that the script is still written by writers, researched by researchers, vetted by Reed, and signed off on editorially, and we're really putting a lot of importance on that, and feeli…”
May 23, 2024
Jun 3, 2024 neutral
Jun 3, 2024 negative
Hoffman would pause AI digital twins for the election year if possible
“Well, if I could wave a wand and essentially, you know, kind of say that nobody could be doing digital twins whatsoever, given the negative consequences, especially because it's a election year, I'd wave the wand because I think that the negative immediate con…”
Jun 3, 2024 positive
Jun 3, 2024 bullish
Jun 3, 2024 neutral
Hoffman: Direct text-to-speech AI captures personal vocal quirks better than voice actors
“Actually, in fact, the AI gets some of the cadences better because it just trained on all the master scale thing because it trained on that. And it kind of goes, well, you know, Reed does these weird pauses and these kinds of circumstances. I'm going to do tho…”
Jun 3, 2024 positive
Writers do not need to cite AI-generated sentences they endorse, Hoffman argues
“Like, for example I don't have any worries that if I do a GBT prompt in something I'm writing, and it gives me a couple sentences I really like, and I put those sentences in. I don't feel like I need to quote them. I don't think I need to go, you know, and her…”
Jun 3, 2024 positive
Hoffman: Digital twins of voice or image require clear, unhidden disclosure
“So if you are using like a digital twin of your image or voice, you should be signaled in some way. It doesn't necessarily have to be like, you know, like glaring red lights in the background. Right? Because that might not be the experience you're looking for,…”
Jun 3, 2024 negative
Jun 3, 2024
Jun 3, 2024 neutral
Jun 3, 2024 positive
Hoffman: AI clone generated four-minute Italian speech in two hours
“I'm giving a speech in Perugian about a month, and since we have it, I was like, ah, let's give the first four minutes in Italian and send it to some Italian friends and see what they think. And, you know, we generate it in an hour or two and send it over.”
Jun 24, 2024 negative
Jul 9, 2024 bullish
Jul 9, 2024 bullish
Hoffman: Technology represents 30% to 80% of any scale solution to world problems
“I tend to think that, ah, of your scale solution to any world problem, it can be criminal justice, it can be economic justice, but also climate change, 30 to 80% of the solution is a technological solution, so you have to ask yourself what the technological st…”
Jul 18, 2024 bullish
Hoffman: Winning in AI requires more than training large models
“People say, well, it's all about the size of the model you're training. So it'll be open AI, Google, Microsoft, you know, and that's it. And you're like, well, no, actually, in fact, there's going to be a lot more than just the size of the model you're trainin…”
Jul 18, 2024 positive
Hoffman: Valuable contrarianism challenges domain expertise, not the general public
“The contrarian to everyone else in the world is generally where you're crazy. The contrarian that's interesting is when you go against a body of expertise and you say, I think differently than this body of expertise for the following reason, which is essential…”
Jul 18, 2024 negative
Jul 30, 2024 bullish
Hoffman: AI Assistants on Every Smartphone Will Provide Direct Medical Guidance
“And so I think part of what we're going to be doing is kind of training, you know, AI to kind of be as an assistant on every smartphone, and the first question will be is, do you have access to a GP, right? Because by the way, if you have access to a GP, You k…”
Sep 19, 2024 positive
Sep 19, 2024 neutral
Sep 19, 2024 neutral
Hoffman: Ideal venture investments look crazy day one, obvious by year five
“Like in a venture thing, what you're kind of ideally looking for is that day one of the investment, everyone thinks you're a little crazy. And then at like year two, it's like, oh yeah, that's credible. And at year three to five, it's obvious.”
Sep 19, 2024 positive
Hoffman: Memory is essential for establishing trust in AI agents
“Yeah, because part of how trust is established is that the, you believe that the person knows you, Cares about you, understands, you know, what's kind of good for you, and interests, and so forth, and will act in those ways. And memory, of course, is essential…”
Sep 19, 2024 positive
Sep 19, 2024 positive
Sep 19, 2024 negative
Hoffman: Bad Actors Pose Greater AI Risk Than Existential Scenarios
“One of the reasons why I kind of advocate very strongly against the existential risk, the robots are coming, you know, Terminator movie, et cetera, is because most of the real bad things to focus on are AI in the hands of, you know, kind of bad human beings. W…”
Apr 3, 2025
Hoffman and Mukherjee required a 10x improvement for Manus AI's tech
“When Sid and I went through the whole area, we abandoned any interest in an AI thing, so it wasn't every slice, there wasn't a minimum of 10 X And frequently it was like, okay, no, no, it's much greater than 10 X that we can make this work and then focus on th…”
Apr 3, 2025 bullish
Hoffman: Manus AI already has prospective molecules and proprietary technology
“We already have some of those markers internally. We've already had some kind of prospective molecules. We've already had some of our technology development show things that we think no one else, like, help build secrets that we think no one else knows.”
Apr 3, 2025 negative
Apr 3, 2025 positive
Manus AI partnered with Microsoft to deploy uncommercialized Research technology
“And that's part of what led us into partnering with Microsoft because both Sid and I from two different angles had some understanding of where Microsoft was, had been working on some pretty unique technology that That hadn't really been, and hasn't really been…”
Apr 3, 2025 positive
Hoffman commits at least one day weekly to co-founding Manus AI
“It is still co-founder because it's like at least a day a week you know, kind of focus on things, but it's when you have a CEO co-founder who is exactly the right kind of person that I know how to kind of add in In the way that a co-founder adds in versus, for…”
Jun 5, 2025 positive
Jun 5, 2025 positive
Hoffman: Inflection's Pi AI is programmed to reject 'best friend' status
“I co-founded this company called Inflection. We have this AI called Pi, if you, pun intended, personal intelligence, and if you go to Pi and say, you're my best friend, it says, no, no, I'm your AI companion. Let's talk about your friends.”
Sep 16, 2025 positive
Sep 16, 2025 bullish
Sep 16, 2025 positive
Hoffman: Users employ AI assistant Pi to facilitate marital conversations
“I mean, like one of the funny things that I that I didn't anticipate with the AI assistant Pi that, you know, my co-founded Inflection does is people actually use it for facilitating even marital conversations. Like they'll have Pi sitting there saying, oh, yo…”
Jan 24, 2026 negative
Hoffman: Calling an AI model a friend is an absolute mistake
“No, and that's part of the reason why it's an absolute mistake. I literally correct people that I talk to them and say, oh yeah, I, you know, Claude's my best friend. And I'm like, no, friendship is a bi-directional relationship. Like part of what is actually …”
Jan 24, 2026 neutral
Jan 24, 2026 bullish
Hoffman: Even technical experts are severely underutilizing LLMs
“I can literally, I would win this bet. I could literally say everyone in this audience, including the technical super smart trap is not using LLMs to the extent that they could to empower themselves. Like we are under using these things right now.”
Jan 31, 2026 positive
Hoffman: Future computing education will center on probabilistic concepts
“I think what's going to happen is we're going to bring in a set of other computational concepts. I think it'll be probabilistic concepts because actually most of like LLMs and everything else is very interesting. It's probabilistic.”
Jan 31, 2026 neutral
Jan 31, 2026 neutral
Hoffman: Competing against blitzscalers forces companies to blitzscale too
“And if you're going up against blitzscalers, it's very hard to succeed without also blitzscaling because the blitzscaling will set the market. It may blow up, but we'll set the market. If it blows up, it'll probably blow you up with the market.”
Jan 31, 2026 bullish
Hoffman: Everyone will eventually use an AI coding co-pilot
“One of the things I think is I think actually, in fact, everyone's going to be having a coding co-pilot, whatever code. I'm coding because just like that CEO or anything else is like, that's now part of just the way that you would also write, like write an ema…”
Mar 27, 2026 neutral
Jul 2, 2026 bullish
Hoffman: Consumer AI will be massive despite enterprise-heavy consensus
“With AI, people haven't realized the whole consumer revolution. That's going to come with AI. And I agree with you. And as we know, as we see in Silicon Valley, everyone's talking, well, well, okay, enterprise is where the money is. That was the same thing bac…”
Jul 2, 2026 neutral
Jul 2, 2026 neutral