You've had over a thousand board meetings between Microsoft, Airbnb, LinkedIn, PayPal and more. What are the rituals of these meetings that make them successful? Well, it's a really good question in part because, you know, I actually think most people don't realize how boards are more of a kind of an apprenticeship kind of professional gig versus anything else. And understanding how to do a board well only comes with a lot of repeat practice, which mostly, you know,. venture capital is one of the few that does.
Few figures have shaped the way we think about business over the past 20 years more than Reid Hoffman. The co-founder of LinkedIn and former PayPal executive is also a wildly successful venture capitalist, author and podcaster, but he didn’t get to his place as a Silicon Valley giant without making plenty of crucial decisions. On this episode Hoffman discusses lessons learned from decades spent as a hands-on operator and investor, including what he knows about scaling that others miss, the three principles of decision making, how to constantly evolve your learning pattern, and why the best leaders adapt to the crisis at hand. Hoffman is perhaps best known for co-founding the professional networking site LinkedIn, which he started in 2003 and later sold for a reported $26.2 billion to Microsoft in 2016. Prior to founding LinkedIn, Hoffman was one of the first employees at PayPal, where he served as an executive vice president. He is also a partner at the venture capital firm Greylock Partners, an investor in Airbnb, the author of a series of successful business books including Masters of Scale, and the host of the podcast of the same name.
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