LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman "Success! How I Did It"
Reid Hoffman
Reid Hoffman  is the billionaire cofounder of LinkedIn and served as its CEO for four years.
 He 's also an investing partner at Greylock Partners.
 Hoffman  was on the early executive team at PayPal and created web-based social networks in the 1990s.
People talk about  Reid Hoffman  as a philosopher of Silicon Valley. That's by design.
Before  he  was the billionaire cofounder of LinkedIn and a partner at Greylock   he  planned to be a "public intellectual."  Hoffman  says  his  philosophical training guides  his  business and investment strategies every day.
"Formulating what your investment thesis is  what the strategy is  what the risks with the approach are  what kinds of things you would be doing with it  are all greatly aided by the crispness of thinking that comes with philosophical training "  Hoffman  said on Business Insider's podcast  "Success! How I Did It."
 He 's now one of the foremost experts on entrepreneurship and careers  sharing  his  theories through  his  podcast "Masters of Scale " presentations  essays  and books.  He 's built one of the most robust networks in Silicon Valley — Tesla/SpaceX's Elon Musk and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg are among  his  many friends — and  he 's always gathering insights from them.
On this episode of "Success! How I Did It "  Hoffman  talks about how  he  sees  his  place in the world   his  30-year friendship with  his  political opposite Peter Thiel  and  his  love of playing board games.
Rich Feloni: Let's start at the beginning — a young  Reid Hoffman  playing board games.
 Reid Hoffman : Probably my younger self would be embarrassed about how less good my older self would be. But  like  in Settlers of Catan  I think it's one of the most entrepreneurial of the kind of social board games because it involves trading — you trade resources and so forth — and that kind of dynamic actually makes it much more entrepreneurial than your typical kind of board game slash war game.
 Hoffman : It is. I got bitten by the independence  to be out of the house a little earlier than your average kid. And part of what appealed to me about Putney was that  in addition to having academics  it was doing blacksmithing and woodworking and working on the farm and art and a bunch of things that I wouldn't otherwise had experience to do.
 Hoffman : Yeah  and very much so.
 Hoffman : So this is one of those false-dichotomy questions because the answer is massively both  right?
 Hoffman : I actually never really thought about  myself  as an entrepreneur until years into LinkedIn  which is after I had founded my second company. What I had been focused on  almost from those early days at Putney  was just building stuff  being a public intellectual  making something happen  and then what's the way you do that?
 Hoffman : Oh  actually  I didn't turn down that investment. Because I was worried about the appearance of conflict with LinkedIn  I sourced it to Peter and then I co-invested a small amount of dollars along with Peter. So it was financially very expensive  but it's always good to act first and foremost with a sense of ethics and integrity  and what I had been worried about was that people would say  "Oh  well  you're both invested in Facebook as a lead investor and you're doing LinkedIn " and I said  "OK  well  Peter has no conflict  so he can lead and then I can essentially co-invest."
 Hoffman : I had had this notion of having a network be a platform  and what a platform is  is a number of applications are built on top of it. But a network is a platform primarily when it has your real identity and real relationships. When it is  in fact   Reid Hoffman  and  Reid Hoffman 's colleagues and friends and so forth.
[TGT]is the billionaire cofounder of LinkedIn and served as its CEO for four years.
 [TGT] 's also an investing partner at Greylock Partners.
 [TGT]was on the early executive team at PayPal and created web-based social networks in the 1990s.
People talk about  [TGT]as a philosopher of Silicon Valley. That's by design.
Before  [TGT]  was the billionaire cofounder of LinkedIn and a partner at Greylock   [TGT]  planned to be a "public intellectual."  [TGT]says  [TGT]  philosophical training guides  [TGT]  business and investment strategies every day.
"Formulating what your investment thesis is  what the strategy is  what the risks with the approach are  what kinds of things you would be doing with it  are all greatly aided by the crispness of thinking that comes with philosophical training [TGT]said on Business Insider's podcast  "Success! How I Did It."
 He 's now one of the foremost experts on entrepreneurship and careers  sharing  his  theories through  his  podcast "Masters of Scale " presentations  essays  and books.  He 's built one of the most robust networks in Silicon Valley — Tesla/SpaceX's Elon Musk and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg are among  his  many friends — and  he 's always gathering insights from them.
On this episode of "Success! How I Did It "  Hoffman  talks about how  he  sees  his  place in the world   his  30-year friendship with  his  political opposite Peter Thiel  and  his  love of playing board games.
Rich Feloni: Let's start at the beginning — a young  [TGT]  playing board games.
 [TGT] : Probably my younger self would be embarrassed about how less good my older self would be. But  like  in Settlers of Catan  I think it's one of the most entrepreneurial of the kind of social board games because it involves trading — you trade resources and so forth — and that kind of dynamic actually makes it much more entrepreneurial than your typical kind of board game slash war game.
 [TGT] : It is. I got bitten by the independence  to be out of the house a little earlier than your average kid. And part of what appealed to me about Putney was that  in addition to having academics  it was doing blacksmithing and woodworking and working on the farm and art and a bunch of things that I wouldn't otherwise had experience to do.
 [TGT] : Yeah  and very much so.
 [TGT] : So this is one of those false-dichotomy questions because the answer is massively both  right?
 [TGT] : I actually never really thought about  myself  as an entrepreneur until years into LinkedIn  which is after I had founded my second company. What I had been focused on  almost from those early days at Putney  was just building stuff  being a public intellectual  making something happen  and then what's the way you do that?
 [TGT] : Oh  actually  I didn't turn down that investment. Because I was worried about the appearance of conflict with LinkedIn  I sourced it to Peter and then I co-invested a small amount of dollars along with Peter. So it was financially very expensive  but it's always good to act first and foremost with a sense of ethics and integrity  and what I had been worried about was that people would say  "Oh  well  you're both invested in Facebook as a lead investor and you're doing LinkedIn " and I said  "OK  well  Peter has no conflict  so he can lead and then I can essentially co-invest."
 [TGT] : I had had this notion of having a network be a platform  and what a platform is  is a number of applications are built on top of it. But a network is a platform primarily when it has your real identity and real relationships. When it is  in fact   Reid Hoffman  and  Reid Hoffman 's colleagues and friends and so forth.