#Reid hoffman pro
#Reid hoffman professional

It wasn’t especially fun or stimulating and didn’t involve close friends. The speaking event he had just done was in the “save” or “change the world” category-it would hopefully inspire other entrepreneurs, extend the Greylock brand, and help build a couple relationships with folks in the industry. That evening, as I sat across from him on the plane, he looked exhausted. It’s the very rare project that involves close friends and ongoing intellectual stimulation, and change-the-world impact. Which is it today: saving or savoring? Usually you do have to choose. He is among the most selfless and externally-generous people I’ve met in my life.ĭecision making becomes hard when you want to do both. He wants to use his talent and network and money to change the world for the better and solve some of humanity’s biggest problems. Savor for him means arriving at intellectual epiphanies it means spending time with friends.īut what he really wants to do is save. Reid likes to savor, albeit not hedonistically. For the 99% of people with resource constraints, they might bag a 9-5 job, accumulate vacation days as diligently as possible, retire early, and maybe donate to their friend’s Walk Against Cancer.

#Reid hoffman pro

For those with no constraints, the plan is often straightforward: they put their name on a few buildings of their alma matter, buy a pro sports franchise, and call it a day. “I wake up in the morning unsure of whether I want to savor the world or save the world,” White said, “This makes it hard to plan the day.”įor some, savor is the easy answer to the task of planning a life. Often, Reid wrestled with these tradeoffs. When Reid chose to fly to Las Vegas and speak at this event, the list of things he chose not to do with that time was very, very long. A small number of humans have virtually no constraints on their decision-making, and Reid is one of them. Do almost anything you can think of – from saving the local opera company from bankruptcy to traveling to the farthest outposts on earth in total luxury. Imagine you could meet anyone, from the President of the United States on down. Reid faced tradeoffs in his life that were heavier than the ones you or I face. When you choose to optimize a choice on one factor, it means necessarily suboptimizing on another factors.

#Reid hoffman professional

The conversation then shifted, as it increasingly did those days, to a different line of inquiry: Did this trip to Vegas advance an important professional project? Did he have fun? Or both?Įvery decision has tradeoffs: when you choose to do one thing it means you choose not do some other thing. He re-played his answer on how Greylock differed from other venture capital firms. I gave some quick feedback on the answer he offered to a question about LinkedIn’s vision. Other than the two pilots in the front, Reid and I were alone, debriefing what worked and what didn’t at the tech event where he had just spoken. Not having to go through security at an airport saves a lot of time. We touched down in Las Vegas only three hours before, but we were already back in the plane and flying home to San Jose on a brisk winter day in December, 2012.