Winning Requires More Than Just Building a Superior Product So please read the book if you’d like to learn more about developing yourself and your brand.Īlong the way, Hoffman has shared a lot of advice for entrepreneurs. This post is not intended to be a replacement or substitute for the book. More recently, he wrote a book along with Ben Casnocha. Today, Hoffman is the executive chairman of LinkedIn and a partner at Greylock Partners.

It’s been the “unsexy” but very profitable networking tool. The 4 th quarter of 2012 was a breakout quarter for them, as they had an $11.51 million profit off of $303.62 million in revenue. While Facebook has struggled in the public market, LinkedIn has excelled. With LinkedIn, Hoffman has built a company that is unlike most other consumer web products. He describes himself as a “loner” in school with 3-5 friends. Hoffman isn’t the type of person you’d expect to build a product that connects people. After Hoffman made his money with PayPal, he co-founded LinkedIn. After strategy disagreements with the SocialNet board, Hoffman joined PayPal and became part of the PayPal Mafia. After Apple, he co-founded SocialNet, which was a “technology for matching people up.” Dating was its primary initial value. At Apple, he worked on the eWorld project.

LinkedIn isn’t Hoffman’s first networking creation. Hoffman believes that society and communities are real and that technology can be used to create new communities. Reid Hoffman, social networker and co-founder of LinkedIn, might respectfully disagree. There are individual men and women, and there are families.” Margaret Thatcher once said, “There is no such thing as society.

Reid hoffman linkedin