Reid Hoffman
Reid builds networks to grow iconic global businesses, as an entrepreneur and as an investor.
Bio
Networks and marketplaces are central to all of my investing and thinking. They are foundational to scaling businesses that reach hundreds of millions of people. Today, that has broadened into areas beyond web 2.0 or online people-product-networks. There are now networks being created through serious, deep technology.
Reid is a Silicon Valley stalwart in the modern technology world.
An accomplished entrepreneur and executive, he played an integral role in building many of today’s leading consumer technology businesses, including LinkedIn and PayPal. As an investor, he has been instrumental in the success of iconic companies such as Facebook and Airbnb and has helped fast-growing startups like Aurora and Convoy get to scale.
Reid joined Greylock in 2009 and focuses on early-stage investing in products that can reach hundreds of millions of participants. His unique understanding of consumer behavior and a clear-eyed ability to guide startups from inception through ramped-up “blitzscaling” has made him one of the most sought-after advisors, partners, and investors today. Reid was a board observer for Airbnb and currently serves as a board director for Aurora, Blockstream, Coda, Entrepreneur First, Inflection, Joby Aviation, Microsoft, Nauto, and a few early-stage companies still in stealth.
Reid’s core focus is on businesses with network effects. In 2003, he co-founded LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network that today has more than 700 million members and a diversified revenue model that includes subscriptions, advertising, and software licensing. Before LinkedIn, Reid served as executive vice president at PayPal, where he was a founding board member and responsible for all of the company’s external relationships.
Reid is a frequent public speaker, known for his approachability and skill at explaining complex topics with lucidity. He is the co-author of Blitzscaling and two New York Times best-selling books: The Start-up of You and The Alliance and Masters of Scale. He also hosts the podcast Masters of Scale.
A California native, Reid spent most of his life in the Bay Area. He earned a B.S. with distinction in symbolic systems from Stanford University and then earned a master’s degree in philosophy from Oxford University. He has honorary doctorate degrees from Babson University and the University of Oulu.
Beyond startups and technology, Reid has a wide range of interests, including politics, board games, science fiction, philosophy, and philanthropy. He serves on several not-for-profit boards, including Kiva, Endeavor, CZI Biohub, the Berggruen Institute, New America, the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, and the MacArthur Foundation’s Lever for Change. Reid has received various awards for his philanthropic work, including an honorary CBE from the Queen of England and the Salute to Greatness Award from the Martin Luther King Center.
His foundational thesis of the power of networks extends beyond marketplaces and social ecosystems. Recently, it has led to his investments in sectors including autonomous transportation, cryptocurrency, and shipping logistics.
Read the full collection of Reid’s essays and insights
Portfolio Companies
We do self-driving cars.
Domain
AI
FIRST PARTNERED
Series A
CURRENT STATUS
Public
INVESTORS
Reid Hoffman
LEADERSHIP
HQ
Palo Alto, CA | USA
Pittsburgh, PA | USA
Coda is a new doc for teams.
Domain
AI, SaaS
FIRST PARTNERED
Series A
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Reid Hoffman
LEADERSHIP
HQ
Mountain View, CA | USA
Turning exceptional individuals into exceptional founders.
Domain
FIRST PARTNERED
Series A
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Reid Hoffman
LEADERSHIP
HQ
London | UK
AI-first consumer product company.
Domain
AI, Consumer
FIRST PARTNERED
Seed
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Reid Hoffman, David Sze
LEADERSHIP
HQ
Distributed
Self driving made simple.
Domain
AI
FIRST PARTNERED
Series B
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Reid Hoffman
LEADERSHIP
HQ
Palo Alto, CA | USA
Neeva is search re-imagined — always ad-free, private, and deeply personal.
Domain
AI
FIRST PARTNERED
Series A
CURRENT STATUS
Acquired
INVESTORS
Asheem Chandna, Reid Hoffman
LEADERSHIP
HQ
Mountain View, CA | USA
The modern storytelling tool for work.
Domain
AI, SaaS
FIRST PARTNERED
Seed
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Reid Hoffman, Seth Rosenberg
LEADERSHIP
HQ
San Francisco, CA
International private bank giving access to US Dollar and Bitcoin.
Domain
Fintech & Crypto
FIRST PARTNERED
Series A
CURRENT STATUS
Acquired
INVESTORS
Reid Hoffman
LEADERSHIP
HQ
Gibraltar | UK
We do self-driving cars.
Aurorais delivering the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly. In 2017, leading autonomy experts — Chris Urmson, Drew Bagnell, and Sterling Anderson – came together to accelerate the adoption of driverless vehicles by developing the Aurora Driver and a multifaceted network of manufacturing, mobility, logistics, and fleet management partners. Created from industry-leading hardware and software, the Aurora Driver is built to safely move goods and people. Aurora is backed by Amazon and Sequoia, among others, and has partnerships with leading transportation companies including Toyota, Volvo, PACCAR, Uber, FCA, and Hyundai Group. It tests its vehicles in the Bay Area, Pittsburgh, and Dallas and has offices in those cities as well as in Bozeman, Seattle, Denver, and Detroit.
DOMAIN
AI
FIRST PARTNERED
Series A
CURRENT STATUS
Public
INVESTORS
Reid Hoffman
LEADERSHIP
Chris Urmson, CEO & Co-Founder
Sterling Anderson, CPO & Co-Founder
Drew Bagnell, CTO & Co-Founder
HQ
Palo Alto, CA | USA
Pittsburgh, PA | USA
Coda is a new doc for teams.
Coda is a new doc for teams. It starts with a blank canvas and a blinking cursor and comes with a new set of building blocksーlike tables that talk to each other, buttons that take action outside your doc, and sectionsーso you have infinite room to grow your ideas.
DOMAIN
AI, SaaS
FIRST PARTNERED
Series A
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Reid Hoffman
LEADERSHIP
Shishir Mehrotra, CEO & Co-Founder
Alex DeNeui, VP of Engineering & Co-Founder
HQ
Mountain View, CA | USA
Turning exceptional individuals into exceptional founders.
FIRST PARTNERED
Series A
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Reid Hoffman
LEADERSHIP
Matt Clifford, CEO & Co-Founder
Alice Bentinck, CPO & Co-Founder
HQ
London | UK
An AI studio driven to create a personal intelligence for everyone.
Inflection is an AI studio, incubated at Greylock. Inflection is driven by a simple mission: to create a personal intelligence for everyone.
DOMAIN
AI, Consumer
FIRST PARTNERED
Seed
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Reid Hoffman, David Sze
LEADERSHIP
Sean White, CEO
Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder
HQ
Distributed
Self driving made simple.
AI-powered driver behavior modification technology.
DOMAIN
AI
FIRST PARTNERED
Series B
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Reid Hoffman
LEADERSHIP
Stefan Heck, CEO & Founder
HQ
Palo Alto, CA | USA
Neeva is search re-imagined — always ad-free, private, and deeply personal.
Neeva is the world’s first completely ad-free, private search engine. We help our users find exactly what matters to them, whether that information is on the web, in their buried emails or in an impossible-to-find document. We never show distracting ads, and we keep all searches private. Neeva is building a digital world that revolves around people — not advertisers.
DOMAIN
AI
FIRST PARTNERED
Series A
CURRENT STATUS
Acquired
INVESTORS
Asheem Chandna, Reid Hoffman
LEADERSHIP
Sridhar Ramaswamy, Co-Founder & CEO
Vivek Raghunathan, Co-Founder
HQ
Mountain View, CA | USA
The modern storytelling tool for work.
Tome is built for people to express themselves intuitively so they can stop designing slides and start sharing ideas. It helps you convey complex thoughts in a precise and engaging way, both on mobile and desktop. It pulls in data directly from the source to help build a more persuasive narrative. Team collaboration is made easy no matter where you are with annotations and native video recording.
DOMAIN
AI, SaaS
FIRST PARTNERED
Seed
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Reid Hoffman, Seth Rosenberg
LEADERSHIP
Keith Peiris, CEO & co-founder
Henri Liriani, CPO & co-founder
HQ
San Francisco, CA
International private bank giving access to US Dollar and Bitcoin.
https://www.xapo.com/Xapo has evolved from the world’s largest Bitcoin custodian to an international private bank that is focused on protecting and growing wealth for its members in emerging markets. Xapo offers US Dollar and Bitcoin accounts, and pays an annual interest on both types of deposits.
DOMAIN
Fintech & Crypto
FIRST PARTNERED
Series A
CURRENT STATUS
Acquired
INVESTORS
Reid Hoffman
LEADERSHIP
Wences Casares, Executive Chairman & Founder
Seamus Rocca, CEO
HQ
Gibraltar | UK
A community marketplace for unique spaces.
Airbnb is one of the world’s largest marketplaces for unique, authentic places to stay and things to do, offering over 7 million accommodations and 40,000 handcrafted activities, all powered by local hosts. An economic empowerment engine, Airbnb has helped millions of hospitality entrepreneurs monetize their spaces and their passions while keeping the financial benefits of tourism in their own communities. With more than half a billion guest arrivals to date, and accessible in 62 languages across 220+ countries and regions, Airbnb promotes people-to-people connection, community and trust around the world.
DOMAIN
Consumer, Marketplace & Commerce
FIRST PARTNERED
Series A
CURRENT STATUS
Public
INVESTORS
Reid Hoffman
LEADERSHIP
Brian Chesky, CEO & Co-Founder
Joe Gebbia, CPO & Co-Founder
Nathan Blecharczyk, CTO & Co-Founder
HQ
San Francisco, CA | USA
