#147 Reid Hoffman: Better Decisions, Fewer Mistakes

Knowledge Project

Podcast Notes Key Takeaways When scaling a company: “You have to be constantly evolving your learning pattern. What got you here, won’t get you there.”– Reid HoffmanExamples: how you organize your management (work vs management duties in each role), go-to-market strategy (how to get new sales), adjusting the cadence of hiring (promoting from within vs outside org)This applies to our lives too, not just business!Want to be a better leader?“Root for better angels on people”– Shane Parrish quoting Reid HoffmanMake everyone the hero of their own story—people often don’t realize their own potential to make the world a better placeIt’s timely and costly not to have a process for making fast decisions, here’s how to improve (continue reading for more detailed instructions):Be an explicit leanerLearn your set of decision-guiding questionsIdentify irreversible consequencesYou should never try to optimize opportunity cost to be 100% efficientSome of your decisions will seem like an opportunity cost upfront but turn out to be one of your most valuable experiencesYou must leave yourself some room for exploration and serendipity

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org

Few figures have shaped the way we think about business over the past 20 years more than Reid Hoffman. The co-founder of LinkedIn and former PayPal executive is also a wildly successful venture capitalist, author and podcaster, but he didn’t get to his place as a Silicon Valley giant without making plenty of crucial decisions. On this episode Hoffman discusses lessons learned from decades spent as a hands-on operator and investor, including what he knows about scaling that others miss, the three principles of decision making, how to constantly evolve your learning pattern, and why the best leaders adapt to the crisis at hand.

Hoffman is perhaps best known for co-founding the professional networking site LinkedIn, which he started in 2003 and later sold for a reported $26.2 billion to Microsoft in 2016. Prior to founding LinkedIn, Hoffman was one of the first employees at PayPal, where he served as an executive vice president. He is also a partner at the venture capital firm Greylock Partners, an investor in Airbnb, the author of a series of successful business books including Masters of Scale, and the host of the podcast of the same name.

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