Much of what I’ve been thinking and talking about in recent years focuses on scaling up quickly. But this week on Masters of Scale, I’m focused on a very different topic — how to reinvent a company so it remains relevant decades or even centuries after founding. Forget being a unicorn, and be a “Phoenix” instead…
One goal I have for 2018 and beyond is to increase my participation in ongoing efforts to make tech workplaces more diverse and inclusive. It’s an urgent and critical problem; one only has to read Emily Chang’s latest book, Brotopia, to get a deeper understanding what has unfortunately become the experience of so many women in tech.…
The startup world has its own unique vocabulary, filled with acronyms, slang, and colorful phrases. An uninitiated listener would be understandably confused by a founder enthusiastically exclaiming, “We’re crushing it! Our lower CAC proves that the dogs are eating the dog food!*” But the core prerequisite for scaling a new company is a common, simple,…
These days, when you talk about your “communities,” you’re less likely to be referring to a small town like “Our Town’s” Grover’s Corners, than you are to your friends on Facebook, or an Instagram group chat. Online communities have simply become communities. Yet while these new communities are central to our lives, we’re still figuring…
A review of Eric Motley’s Madison Park In 2005, Eric Motley decided to leave his job at the White House, where he worked as Deputy Associate Director of the Office of Presidential Personnel. Like all departing White House staffers, Eric had an opportunity to pose for a photo with his boss, George W. Bush, to mark…
In working on the podcast Masters of Scale, I’ve come to a perhaps surprising conclusion. There are no true “masters of scale.” I believe we are all, at best, what I call “infinite learners” — people who not only enjoy learning, but need to be constantly learning on the job. This describes so many of the iconic…
Collusion. Corruption. Covfefe. In 2017, it was easy to get distracted — and distraught — by President Trump’s Category 5 tweetstorms and the news cycles they drove. And thanks to the connectedness we now experience through social platforms like Facebook and Twitter, we often feel every newsworthy event with both apocalyptic urgency and a sense of fatigue that can paralyze us…
It’s hard enough to be a Master of Scale; to earn that title, you have to have both the opportunity and skill to build a world-leading company or organization. Now imagine how difficult it is to be a 4-time Master of Scale — in two domains that are radically different. That’s exactly what Barry Diller…
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…