Reid Hoffman

Reid Garrett Hoffman (born August 5, 1967) is an American internet entrepreneur, venture capitalist, podcaster, and author. Hoffman is the co-founder and former executive chairman of LinkedIn, a business-oriented social network used primarily for professional networking. He is also chairman of venture capital firm Village Global, a co-founder of Inflection AI, a co-founder of Manas AI, and a board member at Arc Institute.

Hoffman has been an influential figure in political circles, being a member of the Bilderberg Group since at least 2011 and the Council on Foreign Relations since 2015. He has actively participated in political funding and advocacy, contributing to various campaigns and organizations, and has been a vocal proponent of democratic institutions and humanism in technological innovation. As of 2025, Forbes estimates his net worth to be $2.6 billion.

Hoffman was born on August 5, 1967, in Palo Alto, California. He was a year old when his parents, who were both attorneys, got divorced. Hoffman was an avid table-top role-playing gamer as a child and worked as an editor at the game company Chaosium, then based in Oakland, California, near his home.

Hoffman attended high school at the progressive Putney School in Vermont, where he engaged in farming activities. He graduated from Stanford University in 1990 with a Bachelor of Science in symbolic systems and cognitive science. He was awarded a Marshall Scholarship for graduate study abroad, and he earned a Master of Studies (MSt) in philosophy from Wolfson College, Oxford, in 1993.

His paternal great-great-great-grandfather was Theophilus Adam Wylie, a Christian Presbyterian minister and Indiana University president pro tempore. Hoffman's uncle, Eric Hoffman, is a writer.

Hoffman joined Apple Computer in 1994, where he worked on eWorld, an early attempt at building an online service. AOL acquired eWorld in 1996. He later worked at Fujitsu before co-founding his first company, SocialNet.com, in 1997. It focused "on online dating and matching up people with similar interests, like golfers who were looking for partners in their neighborhood."

Hoffman was a member of PayPal's board of directors at the time it was founded. In January 2000, he left SocialNet and joined PayPal full-time as the company's COO. In June 2000, Hoffman became PayPal's Senior VP of Business Development, after a re-organization of PayPal's executive structure by then-CEO Elon Musk.

Hoffman co-founded LinkedIn in December 2002 with two former colleagues from SocialNet (including Allen Blue) and one former colleague from his time at Fujitsu. LinkedIn launched on May 5, 2003, as one of the first business-oriented online social networks. Peter Thiel, a colleague of Hoffman's at PayPal, invested in LinkedIn. At the time of LinkedIn's IPO on May 19, 2011, Hoffman owned a stake worth an estimated $2.34 billion, not including any potential benefits from Greylock Partners, where he was named a partner in 2009.