Venture Voice – interviews with entrepreneurs

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.

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Mark Cuban has built and sold more than one company and invested in plenty of others, but you might be surprised to learn that what he values most is something a lot of entrepreneurs find much more elusive: time. It’s a lesson this natural-born businessman learned from his father and took to heart at an early age. This episode begins with a trip back to Mark’s early years and explores how he made his first million (and then billion) — and why he continues to be driven by the pursuit of freedom that comes with having control over your own schedule. He also talks about some of his productivity habits, including why 40 unread emails is his limit, and how he uses Muck Rack Alerts to keep track of his press mentions. As someone who’s not shy about talking to the press but who also knows how valuable time is, Mark offers this advice for CEOs: “Some of the best time that you can spend is getting to know people that cover and write about your industry.” Listen in to hear Mark’s journey from a self-described “lousy employee” to billionaire Shark who’s accumulated significant wealth in both time and money.

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: https://twitter.com/gregory

On Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregory

On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/GregoryGalant?sub_confirmation=1

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/galant/

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