At Greylock, my partners and I are driven by one guiding mission: always help entrepreneurs. It doesn’t matter whether an entrepreneur is in our portfolio, whether we’re considering an investment, or whether we’re casually meeting for the first time. Entrepreneurs often ask me for help with their financing decks. Because we value integrity and confidentiality…
How updating the communication device known as a “diploma” will help students acquire the right skills and help companies hire the right talent. Every year, millions of Americans embark on the quest to earn a four-year college degree. Many motives propel them. They go to acquire skills and knowledge from experts in their fields. They…
Immigration is pure entrepreneurship. You leave behind everything familiar to start somewhere new. To succeed, you need to develop alliances. You must acquire skills. You will have to improvise on occasion. It’s a bold proposition. Immigration is also fundamental to the U.S. national identity — as the Senate just acknowledged with passage of the most…
In the weeks ahead, there will be a critical national debate on the details of the immigration legislation pending in congress. But this week, let’s all reflect on Emma Lazarus’s famous poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty as a reminder of immigration’s role in our national history. Please watch and share FWD.US‘s newest ad called…
It’s graduation season again and I know that there are a great many students graduating who don’t feel ready for the new world of work. It’s true that the world is changing dramatically, but as a new grad I want you to know that if you have anxiety about what to do next and where…
“Keep your identity small.” —Paul Graham “Identity” has become somewhat of a dirty word, especially in Silicon Valley circles. In many minds, the word “identity” goes hand in hand with the word “politics”; a divisive tool used by politicians to win voters by appealing to religious or ethnic affiliations. YCombinator founder Paul Graham even wrote…
Each month, we invite luminaries from around the world to the LinkedIn campus to share their insights with LinkedIn employees. Last week, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO and author of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, and Gina Bianchini, Founder & CEO of Mightybell and Co-Founder of Lean In, joined me for a fireside chat. I have…
I appreciated the discussion generated by my essay If, Why and How Founder-CEOs Should Hire a Professional CEO. A quick sampling of some of the more thoughtful reactions on the piece: Sarah Lacy, PandoDaily: Hoffman’s essay speaks to a careful cultural shift that’s happening in the Valley. It’s pushing the pendulum away from the extreme “THE…
Risk tends to get a bad rap. We associate it with things like losing money in the stock market, or riding a motorcycle without a helmet. But risk isn’t the enemy–it’s a permanent part of life. In fact, being proactively intelligent about risk is a prerequisite for seizing breakout opportunities. Many more people would enjoy…
Is physical retail doomed? Last week, in conversation with Sarah Lacy of PandoDaily, Marc Andreessen argued that the retail industry is over. In one sense, the impending transformation is clear to intelligent Silicon Valley insiders. In the same way technology disrupted the bloated cost structure of the newspaper industry, technology will inevitably disrupt huge swaths of the…
Earlier this month, I wrote that breakout opportunities are what transform your career. Opportunities do not float like clouds. They are firmly attached to individuals. If you’re looking for an opportunity, you’re really looking for people. If you’re evaluating an opportunity, you’re really evaluating people. If you’re trying to marshal resources to go after an opportunity,…
20 years ago, the classic startup model was to have young founders start a breakthrough company, then bring in “grey hair” in the form of experienced executives once it was time to scale the business. Key examples included Cisco, Yahoo, eBay, Google, and many smaller companies. In the last decade, however, that common wisdom has shifted,…
Success begins with opportunities. Opportunities are like the snap to the quarterback in football. You still have to move the ball down the field; you still have to execute. But without a snap to the quarterback, there’s no touchdown. For a young lawyer, an opportunity could mean being assigned to work with the smartest partner…