CEO Diaries: LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman: The Truth About Elon, Zuck, & Building Great Companies!

Steven Bartlett (0:00)

There's a reason I love today's conversation. It is with the founder of a platform that we probably all use called LinkedIn. And the guy that made that platform is Reid Hoffman. The reality of running a small business is that switching off is never really an option. Even when you try, the ideas, the excitement and all the responsibility is always there. And because you're always switched on, it's only fair that your hiring partner should be too. LinkedIn Jobs, who are the sponsor of this moments episode, has been that hiring partner for me and for years, because it's always working away in the background. My team can post our jobs for free, share them with our networks and reach top talent all in the same place. So let's get into today's conversation. On all these great people you've worked with, specifically during that PayPal period of your life, one of the things I was reflecting on is they're all independently successful people, but they're all very different people.

And that in and of itself is evidence that there's not one version of success. There's many different types of success. Presumably, there's many different types of entrepreneur, leader. Give me a flavor of the different types of entrepreneurs you've worked with. Because I sat with Walter Isaacson, and he talked to me about Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, etc. And he was like, Steve's really great at hiring people. Elon's not as good at the people team building part, but he's better at this part.

Reid Hoffman (1:19)

Yes. So, no entrepreneur wins at every game.

Generally speaking, as an entrepreneur, you should try to win to play the games that you have a massive competitive edge on. Same thing is true. So, some people, for example, like take Anil Bustari at Workday. He is thoughtful, intentionally cultural building, very professional. So, it's a HR product for work. His contrarian idea was going to the cloud and the people were going to do cloud software. For the first, I think it was 500 people that Workday hired, he would always do a cultural interview at the end, because to make sure that the first 500 people all kind of shared cultural things. So, once you get through all the competence and all the rest of the stuff, he would make sure that was a fit. And that's part of how you get cultural coherence. That's like one example, right? Another example, Elon is the, like, I have a big idea and I convinced myself 100% that it's absolutely going to be a case, like, I am going to settle Mars, we're going to terraform Mars in our lifetime, which is, no, it's impossible. No human being on the planet, including Elon, is going to do that within Elon's lifetime.

But I'm going to go all in, I'm going to work really hard, I'm going to be technologically sophisticated, I'm going to work against the odds in order to make that work. That's a Neil, very professional, understands the workplace mark. Elon, I think I was the second person he pitched SpaceX to, and his pitch, though, to my defense, was I'm going to send a turtle to Mars. I'm like, that's not a business, and you're competing with national governments and Russian subsidized rocket programs and so forth. This is not a good, I was wrong, he was right, but it's not a good equity kind of play.

Steven Bartlett (3:25)

He pitched it to you as an investor?

Reid Hoffman (3:26)

Yes. Yeah.

Steven Bartlett (3:29)

At what point was SpaceX at when he pitched it?

Reid Hoffman (3:32)

That was before he started it.

Steven Bartlett (3:33)

So it was an idea?

Reid Hoffman (3:34)

Yes. I'm going to send a turtle to Mars, and then it became, I want to send a gelatinous cube with plant seeds in it to Mars, because they'll grow. I'm going to be the first person who will send life to Mars. And you're like, okay.

Steven Bartlett (3:46)

What did you think genuinely when he said that to you?

Reid Hoffman (3:50)

I thought he'd gone off his rocker.

Steven Bartlett (3:52)

Really? Well, yeah. Of course you would.

My friend said that to me, I think I'd make a couple of calls just to check in. You know what I mean? Is Elon doing okay? He just told me about this turtle.

Reid Hoffman (4:02)

Yes. It's like, that's not a business.

Steven Bartlett (4:06)

Has your opinion of him changed over time in terms of his potential and ability as an entrepreneur?

Reid Hoffman (4:14)

No, no. I've always thought of him as one of the world's great entrepreneurs.

Steven Bartlett (4:18)

Always?

Reid Hoffman (4:19)