Kamla: This is Kamla Bhatt.
We bring you part 2 of our conversation with Reid Hoffman, often described as the most connected person in Silicon Valley. Reid is the chairperson and president of LinkedIn. In this episode, he talks about entrepreneurship and what technology means to him. Here is Reid.
Kamla: And at LinkedIn, you found your CEO through LinkedIn.
Reid: Yes, exactly. And referenced checked the CEO and all the rest of the things. But that is almost like expected. If we are not using the product ourselves we would be- but yes, we were delighted to use LinkedIn. As a matter of fact actually, both my Series A and Series B investors found me through LinkedIn. Series B, I referenced checked through LinkedIn.
Kamla: So what are your plans in India? You don’t have an office there.
Reid: We don’t have an office.
Kamla: How do you plan to ramp up?
Reid: Well, at the moment,
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we have a healthy growth curve already. Indians are a very entrepreneurial society, very dedicated to creating new things. And LinkedIn is a very good tool for doing that on professional side. I would guess that something like 50-60% of Silicon Valley is signed up for LinkedIn. On this basis I would presume that there is a cultural similarity between certain aspects in Indian entrepreneurial energy and verve in Silicon Valley and that is why there are organizations like TiE and these kinds of things have lot of historical relationships. At the moment our plan is growing the global network but we are looking at how we amplify our services within India. We just don’t have-other than the natural growth that we are having; we don’t have any specific plans yet.
Kamla: And do you plan to visit India?
Reid: I do although I have this principle when I visit countries to understand the culture. So, when I will visit India is probably when my friend Ravi is going to visit India so he can show me around to his specific cultural thing as opposed to you know, go visit the Taj Mahal or- I may come out for business purposes too.
Kamla: And this Ravi is the one in Santa Cruz?
Reid: Yes, that is right. He is the provost at the college and he is a professor of environmental studies.
Kamla: And he is an old friend?
Reid: Old friend from Oxford.
His secret dream is to become a cricket commentator, which I understand is a great global sport that I don’t know very much about.
Kamla: I’m surprised you didn’t say “world sport”.
Reid: Yes - world sport, yes. Just not in the US but yeah, you know-it is obviously, mass numbers of people play this to and are dedicated followers.
Kamla: So let me just quickly switch to your early days. You graduated from Stanford, in Symbolic Science, go to Oxford on a Marshall Scholarship, which Tom Friedman also won, interestingly. And then you come back to the Valley in the early 90s and you want to be an entrepreneur. What happened?
Reid: Well, I am an entrepreneur!
Kamla: Then. I said then.