Hoffman co-founded LinkedIn in December 2002 with two former colleagues from SocialNet (including Allen Blue), a former college classmate and a former colleague from his time at Fujitsu. It launched on May 5, 2003 as one of the first business-oriented online social networks. Peter Thiel and Keith Rabois, colleagues of Hoffman’s at PayPal, invested in LinkedIn. As of November 2012, LinkedIn has more than 187 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site allows registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people with whom they have some level of relationship, called Connections. Users can invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection. According to Forbes, “LinkedIn is, far and away, the most advantageous social networking tool available to job seekers and business professionals today."
He was LinkedIn’s founding CEO for the first four years before becoming Chairman and President, Products in February 2007. In May 2007, LinkedIn celebrated its first year of profitability. Hoffman became Executive Chairman in June 2009. With the IPO of LinkedIn on May 19, 2011, Hoffman owns a stake worth an estimated $2.34 billion dollars, not including any potential benefits from Greylock Partners, where he was named a Partner in 2009. Hoffman believes that many people still do not know how to use its service and it is LinkedIn’s job to help them out. In an interview, Hoffman said that “you have to think proactively about how to use a tool that enables your ability to move in ways that you weren’t able to move before, and most of people are not very good at that”.
Read more about this topic: Reid Hoffman