Reid Hoffman: LinkedIn Co-Founder on Building and Scaling Massively Valuable Companies Fast | Entrepreneurship | E332

Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)

YAP Media Network

Education, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Business, Self-improvement

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Despite having a strong product idea, Reid Hoffman’s first startup collapsed, forcing him to return investors’ capital. This tough experience reshaped his approach to entrepreneurship. By embracing failure, iterating quickly, and adapting relentlessly, he went on to become a leader at PayPal and later, the co-founder of LinkedIn. In this episode, Reid shares the concept of blitzscaling, which prioritizes speed over perfection, smart strategies for taking risks, and insights on achieving rapid market dominance. In this episode, Hala and Reid will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (01:32) Building Impact-Driven Businesses (02:56) Why We Need More Entrepreneurs (04:31) The Vision Behind LinkedIn’s Success (06:43) Lessons from a Failed Startup (09:26) Making Quick, Intense Decisions at PayPal (12:39) Blitzscaling: Prioritizing Speed Over Efficiency (18:10) Maintaining Company Culture While Scaling (21:20) The Power of Early Market Dominance (25:01) The Five Stages of Company Growth (28:54) Strategies for Taking Intelligent Risks (31:44) Why Product Perfection Delays Success (33:25) Pivoting Early to Seize New Opportunities (36:18) Entrepreneurship as a Team Sport Reid Hoffman is an entrepreneur, investor, partner at Greylock, and co-founder of LinkedIn and Inflection AI. He was an executive at PayPal and a founding investor in several companies, including OpenAI. Reid actively supports various non-profits and has received numerous accolades, including an honorary CBE from the Queen of England and the Salute to Greatness Award from the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for his philanthropic efforts. Resources Mentioned: Reid’s Book, Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies: amzn.to/4jnQkfQ Sponsored By: OpenPhone - Get 20% off 6 months at openphone.com/PROFITING Shopify - Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at youngandprofiting.co/shopify Airbnb - Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com/host Rocket Money - Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to rocketmoney.com/profiting Indeed - Get a $75 job credit at indeed.com/profiting RobinHood - Receive your 3% boost on annual IRA contributions, sign up at robinhood.com/gold Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap Youtube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services: yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new All Show Keywords: Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship podcast, Business, Business podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal development, Starting a business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side hustle, Startup, mental health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth mindset. Career & Entrepreneurship Career, Success, Entrepreneurship, Productivity, Careers, Startup, Entrepreneurs, Business Ideas, Growth Hacks, Career Development, Money Management, Opportunities, Professionals, Workplace, Career podcast, Entrepreneurship podcast

Transcript

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0:00.0	You have to have speed. And this is one of the things that Silicon Valley has learned more intensely
0:06.3	than anywhere in the world other than maybe China. You were a truly prolific entrepreneur, PayPal,
0:12.3	LinkedIn, Airbnb, Open AI. What were some of the learnings that you learned at PayPal that
0:18.1	helped you become a great entrepreneur? People are familiar with pivots because it's not working. But pivoting towards opportunity is one of the things that
0:24.9	entrepreneurs really need to keep in mind. But scaling companies is prioritizing speed over
0:30.2	efficiency in an environment of uncertainty. Speed over profitability. Yes. And by the way,
0:36.6	through speed of learning it and deploying it and scaling it is the game.
0:40.3	Sometimes entrepreneurs are told, oh, ignore risk.
0:43.3	You're like, no, no, no, take smart risk.
0:45.3	When you're scaling really fast, hiring really fast, how can you maintain a healthy company culture?
0:49.3	You have to intentionally.
1:09.3	Yeah, bam, welcome back to the show.
1:12.9	Today we have a true legend on the podcast. Reed Hoffman,
1:18.6	who is the co-founder of LinkedIn and Infliction AI, is joining us. He's also renowned venture capitalist.
1:24.5	He's been behind companies like Airbnb, PayPal, so many great, huge companies that have moved the world forward. He is also a partner at Greylock. He hosts a podcast
1:28.9	Masters of Scale, and he's a prolific author. He's got a brand new book out on AI called Super
1:34.0	Agency, which we're going to dig into in this conversation. Me and Reid talked for well over
1:39.0	an hour and 20 minutes, which you guys know I love to do when somebody's just absolutely
1:42.9	amazing. I want to keep them on for as long as possible.
1:46.2	And Reid was one of those guests.
1:48.2	In part one of this conversation, we really focus on entrepreneurship.
1:51.4	So I talked to him about his early entrepreneurship endeavors.
	...

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