It was only a little more than a year ago that after gaining beta-access to Dall-E, I enjoyed exploring the visual possibilities of “words that could create images.” At the start of 2023, as an early tester of GPT-4, I was firmly in the thrall of text conversations. The countless exploratory chats that came of…
This speech was originally delivered by Reid Hoffman in English on September 8, 2023 at the Bologna Business School at the University of Bologna, the oldest university in the Western world. I’ve used AI—no human editing in this case to show what’s possible with the technology—to translate this speech into over 100 languages. View those…
Today, I’m excited to announce the debut of a new political project I’m financing: a digital campaign — in partnership with Meme 2020, Lincoln Project, Six Point Harness, and Rhyme Combinator — that uses memes, animation, battle rap, and influencer marketing to highlight the absurdity of Donald Trump’s presidency and the importance of voting this November.…
“I built the greatest economy in the World, the best the U.S. has ever had,” Donald Trump tweeted in June. “I am doing it again!” Obviously, the first part of that tweet is a towering Trump lie. Trump inherited a great economy from his predecessors, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and for a while, he…
In the past decade, the term “pivot” has become an integral part of the Silicon Valley lexicon. Perhaps it isn’t surprising that the place that gave birth to FailCon — a conference to learn about failure — would embrace the concept of “if at first you don’t succeed….” Yet most entrepreneurs think of pivoting too…
Some entrepreneurs start their journey with a detailed plan that they follow to the letter. Jeff Bezos, for example, always had a plan for how Amazon would leverage the infinite shelf space of the internet to become the “everything store.” Or consider that in 1980, when Studs Terkel asked a young bodybuilder named Arnold Schwarzenegger…
I’ve known Peter Thiel since we were undergrads at Stanford, when the most common phrase either of us used in our conversations was “How can you possibly believe that?” Yet despite disagreeing on so many topics and in so many ways, we made a great team — whether I was helping Peter build PayPal, or…
Uber recently named Dara Khosrowshahi as its new CEO. I’ve known Dara for a number of years, and Uber has made an excellent choice in picking him. Dara is a steady, capable, well-respected executive, which will be important as he works to turn around Uber’s woes, including multiple lawsuits, government investigations, a troubled culture, and most recently,…
In April 2015, a mother in Flint, Michigan concerned about the city’s seemingly tainted water supply contacted Marc Edwards, an engineering professor who had previously helped expose a similar issue in Washington DC. While the initial tests Edwards made on samples the woman provided revealed high levels of lead in Flint’s water, local officials and…
Entrepreneurship for the Sustainable Development Goals My keynote remarks at the UN General Assembly’s High-Level Event on Innovation and Technology – SDG Innovation. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Your Excellencies: Good morning. It’s a great privilege to be here with you today. My name is Reid Hoffman. I’m the founder of LinkedIn and a partner at the…
This post is part of theBoardlist‘s #BeABetterBoard series of posts and interviews with leading CEOs and VCs from the tech industry. Thought leaders share what they’ve learned while serving and managing boards, what they wish they knew when they started, and what they’re focusing on now. Here are a few of my reflections. The ideal board…
Every growing startup is surrounded by fires — whether issues of product, market, competition, or operational scalability. Smart entrepreneurs don’t try to fight every fire. Instead, they figure out which fires they can let burn — so they can focus on the ones they absolutely have to fight. It’s a delicate balance, because if you…
Silicon Valley has a remarkable track record of producing valuable technology companies. Of the 13 high-tech companies in the world that are worth over $100 billion, six of them hail from Silicon Valley. All of their headquarters sit in a 50-mile stretch from San Francisco to San Jose. Not bad for a region that accounts…
Every year in the U.S., individuals, foundations, and corporations donate around $47 billion a year to non-profit organizations that focus on child welfare, food security, homelessness, and other areas that fall under the domain of “human services.” In comparison, federal, state, and local government spend around $411 billion a year providing similar safety-net services. In his recent book The Givers:…
Nearly every successful technology company has a strong culture—a true articulation of how employees work together. It’s almost impossible to succeed without one. But that doesn’t mean that they have a good culture. Just ask Reed Hastings. Before he led Netflix to global dominance, he co-founded a software company that grew from garage to IPO, but ultimately…