LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman was one of my first guests on Venture Voice, back in 2006. Even though LinkedIn had 7.2 million users by then, it was still very much a niche platform and had only 56 employees. Putting your resumé online for all the world to see was pretty uncommon at that time. But Reid was driven by a simple goal: to change the world. Revisiting this interview now, you can pick up on some of the clues as to why he would become so successful. He takes an almost philosophical approach to business, putting himself in the user’s shoes and focusing on creating valuable media objects that would have a transformative effect on society. He also discusses the value of PR, something that stuck with me as I later launched Muck Rack. And he talks a lot about his peers — Mark Pincus, Peter Thiel, Stewart Butterfield — fellow entrepreneurs who hadn’t yet made it big but went on to do big things and continue to support each other. I was a fledgling entrepreneur when I spoke with Reid back in 2006, and these conversations were hugely instructive to me as I was growing my businesses. Between my companies Muck Rack and The Shorty Awards, we’ve now grown to about 100 employees — more than LinkedIn had at that time. I’ve found that I’ve discovered new insights by revisiting this conversation about what a mammoth company like LinkedIn was thinking about when they were first getting started. Listen now for an inside view of LinkedIn on the cusp.

***

Thank you to our sponsor SteadyMD. Find out more about them here: steadymd.com/venturevoice

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and helps us continue to attract the entrepreneurs you want to hear and learn from.

For show notes, past guests and transcripts, visit venturevoice.com

Sign up for the Venture Voice email newsletter at venturevoice.substack.com/welcome

Follow and connect on social:

On Twitter: twitter.com/gregory

On Instagram: instagram.com/gregory

On YouTube: youtube.com/c/GregoryGalant

On LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/galant/

Learn more about Muck Rack at muckrack.com and The Shorty Awards at shortyawards.com