It’s said that when architects walk through an office, they see ceiling ornamentation, light sources, building acoustics. When psychologists walk through an office, they see unresolved father issues and avoidant personality disorders. When I walk through an office, I see networks. I know that makes me sound like the kid from The Sixth Sense. But I…
By Julie Hanna and Reid Hoffman In San Francisco, Teresa Goines is breaking down deeply entrenched cycles of poverty and crime, one bowl of peanut butter stew at a time. Old Skool Café, the 1940’s supper club she started, gives jobs to at-risk and former gang youth. When banks turned her down, 41 people she’d…
Over the next decade and a half, 2.5 billion people in China, India, and other developing countries will join the global middle class. They are going to need skyscrapers to live in and super-stores to shop in. They are going to want smartphones, cars, flank steaks, air conditioning, pet clothing, Disneyland vacations, and probably some…
In January, activist investor Carl Icahn acquired around 2 percent of eBay’s stock. A month or so later, eager for a return on his investment, he published an open letter to eBay’s shareholders. In it, he expresses concerns about the “long-term value” of the eBay subsidiary PayPal, and its ability to “remain competitive over the long term.”…
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…
“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…
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…
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…
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,…