Reid Hoffman at Startup School [video] | Hacker News Reader

Reid Hoffman at Startup School [video]

themacro.com

71 pointscraigcannon10 comments

Am I the only one who can't listen to Reid Hoffman? I was one of the first LinkedIn users and a few years later I felt that LinkedIn was a scam. I even paid a lot of money for LinkedIn Premium and ads to only realize that LinkedIn was only for recruiters. Their B2B proposition was a black hole. Nothing came from there. Their mobile phone app is until now just a embedded browser that you cannot use offline. No serious business has such execution, it seems like nobody really cared.

I know that Reid is appreciated in the startup world but LinkedIn only shows how smart and patient they were to exit the business.

Anyone that’s inventing the kinds of products that we typically do should be able to articulate a relatively robust theory around “What is human nature? What is humanity like now? Where is it going? And how does your product or service fit into that?”

I have talked with basically every Venture Fund in the valley (Including Greylock by the way) and a Partner has never asked me anything remotely close to this kind of a question. When in the hour intro pitch, or the two hour partner pitch would my personal philosophy come up? Well, the answer in my experience is: it won't come up.

This further reinforces that the people funding at the idea or early deployment stage of their companies are getting it through relationships built over long periods of time with these people. This isn't new to anyone who has been there before, but if it's not clear to you that fundraising is 99% network then you should realize that this is the case.

Are you saying this is the kind of question that an investor would only have the luxory of asking several weeks into an actual relationship?

To be fair, Reid said he spends a long time with people before pulling the trigger (40 hrs+ for founders) and you basically must come in through a refferal.

Are you saying this is the kind of question that an investor would only have the luxory of asking several weeks into an actual relationship?

Forget several weeks, probably over a much longer time period where they are socializing in a friendly way spanning multiple events/dinners etc...

I think there is this notion that there are no "politics" in the startup world which is poison to anyone entering it with the naive idea that "Idea, Talent, Traction, Timing" are everything.

It's interesting hearing Reid Hoffmann talking about the importance of your network, the way he references people and gets referrals etc.

He doesn't mention using Linkedin as a tool to do this. All email and phone. I wouldn't use Linkedin as a tool to do those things either but given that Linkedin position themselves as a network for exactly that and he's the founder I'm surprised at the lack of mention.

Here's a link to the deck Reid talked about http://reidhoffman.org/linkedin-pitch-to-greylock/

Altman keeps the dialogue focused and Hoffman actually gave candid answers. The two of them together run through the pillars of starting a company (having a hypothesis, testing it, MVP, distribution and strategizing about funding)

My favorite part is Hoffman suggesting to know when to quit or look a reason to stop/quit and pivot or move on. Altman however, presents himself as he is well known for, and as PG has corroborated: tenacious/persistent. Hoffman responds to this with with what he calls "flexible persistence" - when founders have conviction with their own theory/vision but still the ability and willingness to listen to guidance. More specifically he suggests re-evaluating the original hypotheses and proposing slight alterations.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com