How I Did It: Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090501/how-i-did-it-reid-hoffman-of-linkedin_Printer_Friendly.html

by hwijaya • 17 years ago

41 9 17 years ago

inc.com

heraclitus• 17 years ago

Matching logarithm? Sweet.

hwijaya• 17 years ago

And, you can find his talk here: http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1685

markessien• 17 years ago

Is it just me, or do the majority of these really large tech company founders all seem to have gone to very prestigious schools? Is there something about the schools that also helps with technology and not just business?

mtpark• 17 years ago

It probably has to do with the fact that very prestigious schools typically have smart students and being smart in general is probably going to play a huge role in success.

edu• 17 years ago

contacts?

zandorg• 17 years ago

I have a theory that prestigious schools give you a 'clever grin' which greases the wheels of business AND gets you venture capital. Almost like an old school tie.

Evidence? Look at Mark Zuckerberg's grin. He also wears his tie now...

utsmokingaces• 17 years ago

The UI and Design of LinkedIn is horrible. I really don't enjoy using LinkedIn. I wish someone has the balls to compete with them. I would if I was interested in professional networking but i'm not. I haven't used XING but hopefully its better than LinkedIn.

chexov• 17 years ago

In terms of UI design XING is a way worst. UI responsiveness is bad in both cases.

skmurphy• 17 years ago

Interesting perspective from Hoffman in this answer:

"You have to think of yourself as an organism competing with other organisms in an ecosystem. It's about how you fit into the world around you. The modern world is moving fast, and you have to move at that speed. This is true even for a restaurant owner. How do you get customer flow? How do you compete with the other restaurants? How do you run your restaurant?"

I think he overlooks the value of cooperation in an ecosystem, many organisms have inter-relationships that are not competitive but cooperative, collaborative, commensal, or coopetitive.

A good book that offers an ecosystem perspective on economics is Bionomics by Michael Rothschild. It's http://www.amazon.com/Bionomics-Economy-As-Business-Ecosyste... on Amazon

How I Did It: Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn

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