Reid Hoffman, chairman and co-founder of LinkedIn Corp., speaks during a Bloomberg West Television interview at the company's headquarters in Mountain View, California, U.S. on Thursday, April 25, 2013.
Reid Hoffman, another member of the PayPal mafia, may be the most well-connected person in Silicon Valley, so it’s fitting that the company he co-founded nearly a decade ago, LinkedIn, is the most important social network for business professionals. (Hoffman reportedly introduced Mark Zuckerberg to Peter Thiel, which led to Thiel’s initial $500,000 Facebook investment.) After LinkedIn’s successful 2011 IPO, Hoffman became a billionaire, with a net worth estimated by Forbes at $3.1 billion. He remains LinkedIn’s executive chairman.
(MORE: LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman: How to Build Your Career in the Networked Economy)
Now a partner at venture-capital firm Greylock, Hoffman, 45, is known as one of technology’s savviest investors, with early stakes in Facebook, Zynga, Groupon, and Airbnb. Last year, Hoffman published a book entitled The Start-Up of You, in which he offered career lessons informed by two decades in Silicon Valley. Hoffman is an active philanthropist, and serves on the board of micro-lending nonprofit Kiva.org.