In his book Zero to One, my friend and former colleague Peter Thiel lays out an ingenious, provocative, and highly entertaining argument regarding the virtues of monopoly and the shortcomings of competition. He makes his case so deftly that I suspect it will soon attain the implacable majesty of conventional wisdom. That would be a shame.…
Bitcoin is often characterized in the media as a volatile virtual commodity that can optimize speculation even more efficiently than gold, securitized subprime mortgages, or tulips. That’s not how I think about it. For me, Bitcoin is a transformative addition to Internet communication protocols that will create new networks of trust, fuel massive economic ecosystems,…
In an alliance at work, the tour of duty represents an ethical commitment by employer and employee to a specific mission that’s expected to last a finite amount of time. An ideal mission is mutually beneficial: the company gains new products, customers, profits, etc. and the employee gains new skills, experiences, connections, and so on. The finite…
Today, eBay Inc. CEO John Donahoe announced that he has hired a new leader for PayPal, Dan Schulman, and that the company will separate its PayPal and eBay payments and commerce businesses into standalone enterprises in the second of 2015 (Read the announcement here). This is a strong decision by John and eBay’s board: It opens a…
Silicon Valley is the best place in the world for adaptation and innovation, as demonstrated by its economic growth over the past decade. If you want your organization to be able to survive and thrive in an environment where change is rapid and disruptive innovation rampant, you need to develop the adaptability that is the…
As I suggested in my first book, The Start-up of You, all humans are entrepreneurs. Our natural inclination to create, adapt and collaborate – all hallmarks of entrepreneurship – are in large part what define us as a species. But as much as entrepreneurship is innate, it’s also a mindset and set of practices that can…
The world of work has changed, and the rules for managers need to change with it. We used to work in an era of stability and lifetime employment. Employers and employees committed to each other, for better or worse, through bull and bear markets, until retirement did them part. Because both sides expected the relationship…
I’m co-author of a new book titled The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age. I’ll be writing a lot more about the book in the weeks ahead. To kick us off, here’s a visual summary of the key ideas that drive an employer-employee alliance, and details about the Tour of Duty framework.
The world of work has changed, and the rules for managers need to change with it. We used to work in an era of stability and lifetime employment. Employers and employees committed to each other, for better or worse, through bull and bear markets, until retirement did them part. Because both sides expected the relationship…
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.”…
Last spring, a shelter in Berkeley, CA needed an architect to help it expand its facilities. A young architect who lives nearby had just made a New Year’s resolution to join a nonprofit board. In an earlier era, they would not have known each other existed. But in this instance the shelter’s executive director used…
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…