• Reid Hoffman on how real friends make us better

  • Feb 7 2022
  • Length: 1 hr and 10 mins
  • Podcast

Reid Hoffman on how real friends make us better

  • Summary

  • What are friends for? To "help us be better versions of ourselves" is Reid Hoffman's answer. He has spent a lot of time thinking about the nature and importance of friendship for human flourishing. Reid is best known for his success as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist: he is co-founder of LinkedIn and PayPal, a partner at Greylock Partners and serves on the boards of Airbnb, Convoy, Edmodo, and Microsoft. The importance of relationships - networks, colleagues, friends, fellow citizens - runs through his philosophy and worldview. That is why he says that "entrepreneurship should include an embedded theory of human nature." Reid studied philosophy as a postgrad at Oxford and there's a strongly philosophical flavor to his work, and to our dialogue. At one point in the conversation he describes himself as a "predictive philosophical anthropologist", and I think by the end you'll see why. We discuss the value of philosophical thinking; the importance of what he calls an "embedded theory of human nature"'; the roles and responsibility of big tech and media companies: why the truth is slow and falsehood fast, and what we might do about that. We spend a lot of time unpacking why friendship plays such an important part in his ethical framework; our current political divides; the importance of truthfulness; and why he remains not a techno-utopian, but a techno-optimist. But we start with the question of why he has a Swiss Army knife in his car, and what that tells us about him.

    Reid Hoffman

    Podcast: Masters of Scale

    Latest book: Blitzscaling, The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies

    Website & blog: https://www.reidhoffman.org/

    "Through friendship, a better version of myself"

    "The Philosopher- Entrepreneur"

    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reidhoffman/

    Twitter: @reidhoffman

    The Dialogues Team

    Creator: Richard Reeves

    Artwork: George Vaughan Thomas

    Tech Support: Cameron Hauver-Reeves

    Music: "Remember" by Bencoolen (thanks for the permission, guys!)

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