Reid Hoffman on how real friends make us better

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!)