Reid Hoffman says he took part in a 1996 episode of Firing Line debating freedom of speech.
“I think I did a 1996 firing line on this on freedom of speech is to say, well, we don't regulate freedom of speech”
Person
Reid Hoffman
4 episodes · 50 quoted claims
- 25 Apr 2023Reid Hoffman on Building AI and Other Tech More Responsibly34m
- 25 Feb 2026Reid Hoffman: Shaping the AI Era, Investing in Transformation and Calling on Europe55m
- 22 Oct 2026Reid Hoffman and OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar on where AI goes from here31m
- 8 Aug 2024OpenAI’s Bret Taylor: Your business can’t wait until AI is perfect39m
Reid Hoffman describes himself as the author of Blitzscaling and a proponent of moving fast.
“I'm the author of Blitzscaling. I'm a definite move fast person.”
Reid Hoffman names Satya Nadella and Sam Altman as tech leaders who are learning to build responsibly.
“some tech leaders, you know, Satya Nadella, Sam Altman, are well on the learning curve.”
Reid Hoffman sits on the board of Joby, a company working on flying cars aimed at easing gridlock and pollution.
“I'm on the board of Joby, we are working on flying cars, and that's to redefine space in a climate change way that will help with gridlock and pollution”
Reid Hoffman co-founded Inflection with Mustafa Suleyman, and Greylock also backs AI companies including Adept, Cresta and Snorkel.
“I co-founded a company called Inflection with Mustafa Suleiman. We have Adept and Cresta and Snorkel and all these other companies at Greylock”
Reid Hoffman says Airbnb's founders pitched him on a marketplace for space, an idea he had not been actively considering.
“when Brian Chesky and Nate and Joe brought Airbnb to me. I hadn't really been thinking about, you know, a marketplace for space”
Reid Hoffman says Roblox is among the Greylock investments in networks that reshape social life, alongside his co-founding of LinkedIn.
“It's part of the reason I created, you know, LinkedIn with my co-founders, things that we've done and various other investments at Greylock, including like, for example, you know, like, take Roblox”
Greylock runs office hours reserved for entrepreneurs from underrepresented minority groups, according to Reid Hoffman.
“I mean, we do things at Greylock like have a set of office hours that's only for underrepresented minority entrepreneurs.”
Reid Hoffman says he works with Mark Zuckerberg on the CZI Biohub, which aims to cure infectious disease worldwide.
“one of the things I do with him is the CZI Biohub, where he's trying to cure infectious disease for people all around the world and putting in a lot of money to that.”
Reid Hoffman says Silicon Valley and a set of mostly coastal Chinese cities are the world's two leading tech regions.
“I'd say the two areas in the world that are the most tech leading are both Silicon Valley and a set of cities in China, mostly along the coast.”
Reid Hoffman says he does not think Chinese tech companies discuss the effects of their work on the Uyghurs.
“in China, I don't think you have any discussion in the tech and companies of like, what it means for the Uyghurs”
Reid Hoffman says hundreds of Microsoft employees work on AI safety and suggests that work be shared for free, including with competitors.
“I think there's hundreds of people at Microsoft who work on AI safety. How do we essentially just distribute it for free?”
Reid Hoffman defines 'techlash' as growing negativity and uncertainty about what technology brings, and says it motivated his show Possible.
“what is referred to as techlash, which is more negativity and uncertainty about what technology is bringing versus the positive sides.”
Reid Hoffman names Juul as the startup he most often criticizes, calling vape products a net negative.
“I guess the the one I most often pick on is Juul. But like creating electric cigarettes or vape things, I think are net not positive.”
Reid Hoffman argues bad regulation can be better than none for the financial system because banking must keep running.
“when you get to the financial system, the absolute necessity of the financial system continuing to run, you say, well, actually, in fact, bad regulation is better than no regulation”
Reid Hoffman proposes escalating fines for violent video, from $1,000 for the first hundred views up to $100,000 per view after that.
“let's say for the first hundred views, it's a thousand dollar fine, for the next thousand views, it's 10,000 dollar fine, and for every view after that, it's 100,000 dollar fine.”
Reid Hoffman says OpenAI reached its position only because Microsoft supported it with computing power.
“OpenAI could only got to its position because Microsoft supported it, um, with compute.”
Reid Hoffman says he co-founded an AI drug-discovery company with Siddhartha Mukherjee at the beginning of the year.
“kind of the different kinds of molecules for therapeutics in Manus AI company I co-founded at the beginning of the year with, um, Siddhartha Mukherjee”
Reid Hoffman says software coding is among the leading areas of AI adoption because engineers are natural adopters.
“probably leading adopters are a whole bunch of stuff in coding, um, because coding gives you a a engineers understand this, they're natural adopters.”
Reid Hoffman says every organization should record its meetings and run AI over the recordings.
“basically every organization should be saying we're recording all of our meetings and we're running an AI on the on the recording of the meeting.”
Reid Hoffman says Greylock records its meetings at all times.
“part of what we find in the venture community and Silicon Valley and in Greylock is that we record these meetings at all times.”
Reid Hoffman says his podcast Possible was released in French, with AI doing the translation.
“where I have a podcast called Possible, and we've released Possible in French, um, because, um, we we basically had AI, you know, kind of do all the translation and compute.”
Reid Hoffman says that in a blind test with Indian friends, the top half of GPT-4 poems were those written in English and then translated into Hindi.
“literally the top half were the one that were written in English and translated to Hindi”
Reid Hoffman estimates that roughly $60 billion of investment is needed to get a gigawatt of computing capacity.
“I think it's roughly like $60 billion to get a gigawatt of compute”
Reid Hoffman defines blitzscaling as taking the risk of going big in an environment of uncertainty.
“the precise definition of blitzscaling is, um, uh, taking the risk of going big in an environment of uncertainty”
Reid Hoffman says Silicon Valley and China are the two places that demonstrate blitzscaling in robust, general ways.
“and the two places in the world that I see demonstrate blitzscaling in really robust, general ways are Silicon Valley and China.”
Reid Hoffman says each GPU at Microsoft is allocated among customer inference, internal research and development, and product deployment, and that all of it could be sold to customers.
“Like at a company like Microsoft, you know, each GPU is kind of being allocated between, like inference, where customers want it, cause basically you could sell all everything to customers.”
PayPal was sold to eBay in 2002, according to Reid Hoffman.
“one of the things that made the PayPal network so noteworthy is PayPal sold to eBay in 2002”
Reid Hoffman says PayPal's sale left its alumni with money and belief in the internet, and they went on to create new companies.
“you ended up with all these people who had some money and believed in the internet and would go and create new companies.”
Reid Hoffman says the Airbnb founders declined a financing offer at twice his valuation in order to work with him.
“they declined a financing offer that was twice my valuation, uh, in order to work with me.”
Reid Hoffman says some of his partners thought Airbnb was crazy when he backed it.
“It looks crazy, like some of my partners thought Airbnb was crazy.”
Reid Hoffman says Roblox, a Greylock investment, took longer than the usual five-to-seven-year timeframe to look obvious.
“Now, occasionally it's longer, like one of the the Greylock investments is Roblox, and that took longer.”
Reid Hoffman says a McKinsey study found top-tier Silicon Valley venture firms do not collaborate directly but signal to and draft off each other.
“the top tier Silicon Valley venture firms. They didn't deliberately, they don't directly collaborate with each other, but they tend to to to signal and draft off each other.”
Reid Hoffman says that when LinkedIn started, many people thought a professional network could not exist.
“in the case of LinkedIn, everyone thought there was no such thing as a professional network.”
Reid Hoffman says early doubters of Facebook argued its users were college students with no money.
“In the Facebook case, people said, Oh, yeah, there's a lot of activity, but it's all college students, um, and they don't have any money”
Reid Hoffman says Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky, who comes from the Rhode Island School of Design, approaches Airbnb as a design problem.
“he's approaching the marketplace, the experience of travel, the experience of staying somewhere, the experience of hosting somewhere as a design thing.”
Reid Hoffman says he helped set up a program called Silicon Valley Comes to the UK.
“I helped set up, um, you know, kind of this program called Silicon Valley Comes to the UK”
Reid Hoffman says Google used AI to achieve savings of '40' (unit not stated) in its data centers.
“Google, which runs some of the best data centers in the world, when they applied their AI technology, figured out how to get savings of 40 in their data center.”
Reid Hoffman says he made a digital version of himself called Reid AI and has demoed it.
“I'm one of these people who made a re a digital version of myself, Reid AI, and have demoed it in various ways.”
Reid Hoffman predicts that voicemail will disappear within a small number of years because AI assistants will answer calls.
“And one of the things I realized by creating Reid AI is that it's a small number of years where, like, voicemail goes away.”