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Reid Hoffman

Partner, Greylock · 2 appearances on the record.

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founderinvestorexecutiveauthorhost@reidhoffman ↗LinkedIn ↗reidhoffman.org ↗Wikipedia ↗Instagram ↗

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.

10statements → 2claims → 2claims resolved → 3.9/5average certainty → 2.4/5average debate potential → 11said about them ↓

2 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted how the 2 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 assertions · 8 insights · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 2 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved. 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

Assertion Supported
Hoffman: PayPal's First Use Case Was Splitting Checks on Palm Pilots
“I think you probably know this, but you know, the first use case for PayPal was splitting the dinner check on Palm Pilots.”
Reid Hoffman Feb 23, 2018 ▶ 8:00 Uncut Interview with Sam Altman on Masters of Scale [Audio] · Y Combinator

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
100% certainty 3
100% certainty 4
none yet certainty 5

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

Everything Reid Hoffman said on the Y Combinator Startup Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
Hoffman: True culture requires knowing which A-players you refuse to hire
“And the, when I talk to folks, I'm trying to get them to sharpen their mind, is what filter would have A players working at other companies than yours? Which A players do you not want working at your company? And that, that shows you that you begin to have som…”
Reid Hoffman May 31, 2017 ▶ 26:08 From Startup to Scaleup | Sam Altman and Reid Hoffman · Y Combinator
Insight
Hoffman: Blitzscaling requires fast, inefficient capital deployment to reach global scale
“Part of what the blitzscaling stuff is, you actually deploy capital in a fast and inefficient way in order to get to scale and or global scale.”
Reid Hoffman May 31, 2017 ▶ 32:54 From Startup to Scaleup | Sam Altman and Reid Hoffman · Y Combinator
Insight
Hoffman: Operating margins do not matter for consumer internet before scale
“Frequently one of the questions that can be in consumer internet especially, enterprise needs to identify this earlier than consumer, and consumer sometimes will overly obsess with operating margins early, when it's actually in fact get to scale, Then obsessed…”
Reid Hoffman May 31, 2017 ▶ 39:57 From Startup to Scaleup | Sam Altman and Reid Hoffman · Y Combinator
Insight
Hoffman: Most people citing network effects cannot define or measure them
“Because a lot of people will use the term and actually don't actually, in fact, know what it is, don't know how to measure it, don't know the different kinds of network effects, Don't know, like, network effects in growth, network effects in engagement, networ…”
Reid Hoffman May 31, 2017 ▶ 3:39 From Startup to Scaleup | Sam Altman and Reid Hoffman · Y Combinator
Insight
Hoffman: 20-person startup executives rarely succeed at 1,000 employees
“And so classically, the, too much of the advice that's given to entrepreneurs is, like, for example, when you're 20 people, hire your scale executives so that when you're, you know, at thousands and so forth, you have all those people baked and in place. And v…”
Reid Hoffman May 31, 2017 ▶ 6:58 From Startup to Scaleup | Sam Altman and Reid Hoffman · Y Combinator
Insight
Hoffman: Scaling companies should prioritize generalists over specialists
“Because one of the things that you do need to eventually, as you scale, hire specialists, but the theme that you look at as you move from startup to scale up is you always have generalists. The generalists are important for learning, changing the organization,…”
Reid Hoffman May 31, 2017 ▶ 16:04 From Startup to Scaleup | Sam Altman and Reid Hoffman · Y Combinator
Insight
Hoffman: Top-down culture fails at scale without horizontal accountability
“Because, ah, if your only culture is top-down hierarchy and messaging and communications that comes from the top, that culture won't survive as you really balloon the organization. Instead, you want a horizontal accountability. You want it so that everybody is…”
Reid Hoffman May 31, 2017 ▶ 18:53 From Startup to Scaleup | Sam Altman and Reid Hoffman · Y Combinator
Insight
Hoffman: Silicon Valley's edge is combining tech invention with business model invention
“But actually, in fact, it's the fact that we intersect technology invention with business invention, where that business invention includes such things as network effects, new business models, and so forth. And then in seeing those, we realize that certain of …”
Reid Hoffman May 31, 2017 ▶ 2:58 From Startup to Scaleup | Sam Altman and Reid Hoffman · Y Combinator
Assertion Supported
Hoffman: PayPal's First Use Case Was Splitting Checks on Palm Pilots
“I think you probably know this, but you know, the first use case for PayPal was splitting the dinner check on Palm Pilots.”
Reid Hoffman Feb 23, 2018 ▶ 8:00 Uncut Interview with Sam Altman on Masters of Scale [Audio] · Y Combinator
Assertion Supported
Hoffman: Workday founders Aneel Bhusri and Dave Duffield interviewed first 500 hires
“Matter of fact, you know, Neil Bushry, when I was talking about this, I think they, ah, he and Dave Duffield interviewed everybody up to 500 because they were the final culture interview.”
Reid Hoffman May 31, 2017 ▶ 26:46 From Startup to Scaleup | Sam Altman and Reid Hoffman · Y Combinator

The other half of the tape: Reid Hoffman's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 9 times in 5 episodes on the Y Combinator Startup Podcast. 2 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Elad Gil 5Paul Graham 2Ooshma Garg 1Mark Pincus 1

Statements about Reid Hoffman, by other people (2)

Assertion Supported
Pincus: Early backers sold Facebook stock because none foresaw its ultimate scale
“I don't think Reed or I Ever imagined how, I know none of us ever imagined how big this, Peter Thiel, all of us, we all sold our stock in Facebook, so we voted with our shares, you know, none of us could have ever described how big this all got.”
Mark Pincus Jun 25, 2026 ▶ 6:02 Zynga Founder: Consumer Is Not Investible Right Now - Thats Why You Should Build It · Y Combinator
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Altman: We will see more investors remaining operating executives
“You know, you, you've figured out an approach to this I like for investors, which is continue to be very involved with operating one company, and I think that's a model that is very underexplored, and we'll see more of.”
Sam Altman Feb 23, 2018 ▶ 10:48 Uncut Interview with Sam Altman on Masters of Scale [Audio] · Y Combinator

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
004284201820192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions
024201820192020202120222023202420252026episodes it came up in
001224201820192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions per episode
2026 1 mention in 1 episode
2018 8 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode

Appearances (2)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Uncut Interview with Sam Altman on Masters of Scale [Audio] · Y Combinator Feb 23, 2018 9m
From Startup to Scaleup | Sam Altman and Reid Hoffman · Y Combinator May 31, 2017 21m
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