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Reid Hoffman

Original nameReid Hoffman

American Entrepreneur, Co-Founder of LinkedIn, Early OpenAI Board Member

The Names Remembered · Small Roles, Famous Names

The Co-Founding of LinkedInEarly OpenAI Board MemberVenture Capital and the AI Startup Ecosystem

Who they are

Reid Hoffman is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist who in 2003 co-founded the professional social platform LinkedIn, and from 2016 to 2023 served as an early OpenAI board member, one of the most connected and most influential venture capitalists in the Silicon Valley AI startup ecosystem. He also co-founded the AI startup Inflection AI (whose core team and technology were thereafter integrated and acquired by Microsoft), and continues, through writing and public speaking, to advocate a cautiously optimistic attitude toward AI development — neither halting technical progress for fear of potential risk nor taking lightly the social impact it may bring.

Primary sourcesHoffman, Blitzscaling (co-authored with Chris Yeh, 2018)The public list of OpenAI’s early board

Key stories

One of Silicon Valley’s Biggest "Connectors"

By the vast network built through founding LinkedIn and a long-active venture-capital record, Hoffman thereafter became one of the most important connectors and drivers of the Silicon Valley AI startup ecosystem, from providing governance-level support for OpenAI in its early years to personally taking part in founding new AI companies, always taking part in and shaping the industrial ecosystem of this wave of technology in a relatively moderate posture stressing "cautious optimism."

Relationships

Ally

💬Sam Altman

Echoes today

Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.

The moderate-centrist industry position of "cautious optimism"The "cautious optimism" position Hoffman advocated, neither halting for fear of choking nor taking things lightly, is often seen as a representative moderate-centrist voice in the tech industry’s internal discussion of AI risk.

Appears in

The Generative-AI Explosion and the Industry ContestThe Consolidation and the Race of the Tech Giants

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