Reid Hoffman is an American Internet entrepreneur and investor, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of LinkedIn. He is also a Partner at Greylock Partners, a venture capital company. With a net worth of over US$3 billion, Hoffman is ranked by Forbes as one of the top 1,000 billionaires in the world.

Early Years

Reid Hoffman was born in Palo Alto, California, United States and was raised in Berkeley, California. He attended the Putney School. As a child, he enjoyed playing tabletop roleplaying games. Aged only 12, Hoffman started his first paying job – he was appointed as an editor at Chaosium, a local gaming company. Two years later, Hoffman’s name featured beside top game designers on the box of the newly released ‘Borderlands’ a role-playing game. In 1990 Hoffman graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Cognitive Science and Symbolic Systems. He also won a Dinkelspiel award and achieved a Marshall scholarship after which he then enrolled with Wolfson College at Oxford University and attained a degree in Philosophy. 

Business Ventures

Reid Hoffman initially saw his academic pursuits as an opportunity to have a large-scale impact on the world, before realising that books written by academics would only reach a limited group of people. He wanted to reach a larger audience and concluded that he would achieve a larger platform through entrepreneurial ventures. After completing an internship at a wine farm, Hoffman entered into the technology sector with Apple Computer, where he started working on an early effort to create a social media platform called eWorld. In 1997 the entrepreneur launched his first company – SocialNet.com, an online matchmaking and dating site that also catered to people looking for activity partners. During this time Hoffman was also one of the board members of PayPal as it was being launched. In 2000 he was appointed as COO of PayPal where he was responsible for the company’s payments infrastructure, government, legal regulations, business development and external relationships. In 2002 when PayPal was acquired by eBay for US$1.5 billion, Reid Hoffman was the Executive Vice President of the company. In the same year, the entrepreneur co-founded LinkedIn.

LinkedIn

Officially launched in 2003, LinkedIn is one of the world’s first business-focused social platforms. By 2014 the platform had over 330 million members in over 200 countries. For the first four years of its existence, Hoffman held the role of founding CEO of the company before being appointed as Chairman and President of Products, a role he held from 2007 until 2009 when he became Executive Chairman. With a significant stake in LinkedIn worth around US2.34 billion, Hoffman was named Partner in 2009. 

Where is Reid Hoffman Today?

After PayPal was sold to eBay, Hoffman became known as one of the most successful and prolific angel investors in Silicon Valley. In 2010 he joined Greylock Partners where he continues to run their US$20 million Discovery Fund. He is focused on enterprise software, consumer Internet, social gaming, online marketplaces, payments, mobile and social network platforms. Hoffman’s current investments include Edmodo, Coupons.com, Change.org, Swipely, Airbnb, Wikia, Care.com, Technetto and VigLink.