Silicon Valley Girl: AI, Tech and Career Growth - LinkedIn founder: how to get ahead while others lose their jobs | Reid Hoffman

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

Reid Hoffman is a Silicon Valley legend — co-founder of LinkedIn, one of the world’s most influential investors, and an early believer in Facebook and Airbnb.In this episode, we talk about:– The skills that will matter most in the coming years– What to learn to stay relevant in 5, 10, and 15 years– Promising niches for future entrepreneurs– And why AI isn’t a threat — it’s an opportunityLinks: Follow my Newsletter:⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://siliconvalleygirl.beehiiv.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠Companies & Products: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Marinamogilko.co⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/siliconvalleygirl/ ⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@SiliconValleyGirl⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠linkedin.com/in/marinamogilko⁠⁠⁠⁠X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://x.com/siliconvalleymm⁠⁠⁠⁠

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What's going on? Like, should we be afraid? I always recommend hope versus fear. Do you think we'll come to a world where we don't need that many people working? Do you think in our lifetime? Look, it's possible. Today, I'm sitting down with Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, And someone who's on the forefront of building and using new AI tools, I wanted to have a conversation with someone who's deep in it about what our future is going to look like when AI is going to be even more adopted in the world. Will AI take over our jobs? Will robots replace us in the near future?

What will the world look like when machines grow smarter, faster, and more capable than ever before? What should we be doing right now and what tools do we need to stay ahead? Let's dive deep into this conversation with Reid Hoffman. You guys, welcome to Silicon Valley Girl. I have one of the most exciting guests today, Reed. Thank you so much for being here. My pleasure. You're amazing. LinkedIn is one of the platforms where I'm very active and Reed founded LinkedIn. And now you're all about AI. You created an AI version of yourself. Read AI. Introduce yourself to everyone. Hello everyone. I'm thrilled to be here today. I'm an AI generated version of Reed Hoffman, his digital twin. A lot of people

watch my channel actually really worried. I'm worried as well. Sometimes when I look at the content, AI generated, you know, some people are getting replaced, like editors used to cut those short videos, now we use an app to do that. What's going on? Like, should we be afraid? I always recommend hope versus fear and curiosity and optimism versus, you know, paranoia. But it doesn't mean that it isn't painful to do the transition. So, yes, AI tools will be available in a small number of years for everything. And there'll be AI tools for not just the thing I've created with Read AI, but like real-time.

I'm interaction with read AI and all the rest of that, and that will happen. But what we should be doing is figuring out how do we add our own creativity? I mean, you're one of the creators and everyone else. How do we add our own creativity and amplify ourselves with the tools? So like, for example, of course you could have an AI just do all your short editing. I bet you the AI doing your short editing is not as good as the AI plus a human doing it. And a human using it can not do a whole bunch more than there before. I'm not they might be able to say, let's create 15 different versions.

and like, test them to see which you're good and do that. And all of a sudden, you have that acceleration of superpower. So fear is generally best converted to curiosity. That doesn't mean it won't be difficult. And that doesn't mean that you won't be learning new things. Because AI will be learning new things and becoming better and better. Exactly. But it's part of the reason why I encourage people to go play with it, go try it.

Because as they realize it, they go, oh, I can still do these things using AI. So, you know, for example, if I'm writing an essay, as opposed to starting with a blank page, I'm probably going to start with a GPD4 prompt, right, and say, hey, I'm thinking about this, this, this, this, this is this, this, this is this, this is what I'm going to start working from in terms of how to do it. And that, by the way, just accelerates me and makes my ability to bring in my intelligence, supposed to having to type a lot and stare at the blank page. I can move faster and get to more interesting things.

And so it's a be curious and hopeful, but doesn't mean don't expect, you know, potholes, transitions, difficulties. Those will be there too. There are some skills that we need to learn in the next couple of years to not be left behind. Obviously, like testing apps, but also I've heard from someone that it's getting a lot easier to code. Like I can learn just some basic things and that use the copilot tools and they will help me. Would you suggest doing that or just wait another couple of years when we don't even need coding and we'd just talk to? Well, so I think within this year, 2025, it'll quickly become that every engineer is using at least one co-pilot agent, and that's part of what professional is.

And I think perhaps by the end of next year, 26, all of us will have a lightweight coding assistant. That doesn't mean it'll code the great iPhone app for you, or it will invent that game that you've been thinking of. But it will help you do things like research, where you say, hey, bring these multiple information sources and documents and put them all together and generate a list of questions, and then generate some provisional answers, and it will help you with that, and then the coding element will help pull all that stuff together, and that will be part of superpower that you and I will now have in that. Generally speaking, AI, don't suggest waiting because part of what you want to be doing, you know, just like any new technological revolution, whether when YouTube was happening, when the Internet's happening, the folks who go and adopt and play with it early, then have a differential edge in the change that it means in the industry and their society.

And so even though three years from now the coding tools will be, and agents will be much better than they are now, the people who started playing with them now will probably be the people who know how to use them and deploy them much more comfortably early. We're talking about like two years. Yes, of course, AI will not be able to come up with an app. But I'm thinking that in 15 years I will tell AI, like, come up with a business idea,

code an app or a website, start selling, figure out the marketing strategy. Like what should I tell my daughters? What should they be learning now? Should they be acquiring academic knowledge or just learning social skills because this is what we'll have left. Well, I think it's always good to learn social skills.

But, for example, take that thing over where you say, say, say, everyone who's going to GPD4 and say, give me an idea for a lemonade stay in business. Well, it'll give them all the same idea. But it has the memory feature. Well, but it has a memory feature for you. It doesn't necessarily taking that memory feature for other folks. It depends a little bit, and it depends on how the learning and training.

But generally speaking, say all million five-year-olds were equally provisioned with GPD4. Which lemonade stands are going to work? Well, the five-year-olds who think, oh, I should make my lemonade stand with Hello Kitty, right? Like, I know my neighborhood. I know my, people really like Hello Kitty. So I'll go in and I'll prompt it for,

what would a Hello Kitty, you know, lemonade stand be? And so that engagement and learning how to use the tool, just like learning how to use an iPhone or learning how to use, you know, a computer, learning how to use, you know, kind of, and obviously, you know, Photoshop and everything else are now going to be much easier because one of the things AI is, is it's like the meta tool.

And so as opposed to having to learn all the details of Photoshop, you can just use the AI and say, well, I'm really thinking about something that has this kind of look and this kind of light effect. Can you do that? And it'll figure out how to do that for you, as opposed to all the mechanics. So that kind of visual thinking or creativity or tool use

is the thing that you also want to be instilling with a kind of a direction of always, learning. But fundamentals, like mathematics, basic coding, is still going to be useful? I think that the coding mindset is still useful. I like that. Yes. I don't think.

It's all about the mindset and the way we think. Yes, exactly. It's a little bit like, you know, people were terrified when calculators came up, that people would stop learning math. It was like, no, no, no. But you stop learning the, okay, I have this whole process of how I carry the one and do all the rest of it. I understand how it works, but I use the calculator or now the computer or the phone.

to do the math. But I still understand math. I still need to understand math. I still think about math in different ways. I just have not, like the job of what I am is a human calculating machine. That job doesn't exist. Yeah. Do you think we'll come to a world where we don't need that many people working? You know, it's possible. I don't think it's actually in fact any near time. We see the trends like Silicon Valley working four days. People are Wednesday, they're like already preparing for the weekend? Well, none of the companies... What I see like in bars, et cetera. They're full on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Well, the bars may be full, but none of the companies that I'm working with are working less than 80-hour weeks. Okay, but those are startups or... Yes, yes. But like bigger companies. But I think bigger companies are also working their way back through the pandemic. It's part of the reason why they return to office and all the rest of the rest of the rest of it in terms of it. And I think that the, you know, for example, Germany is an example

of an industrialized society that went to a very rigorously maintained number of hours work week. And I think it's possible. But I think that because, you know, human beings tend to want to go do epic things, work really hard, sometimes make themselves wealthy, you know, spend a whole bunch of time on a YouTube channel, et cetera, et cetera, that I think that a large number of people will still be very engaged. So I don't think it's necessarily a quick general retirement. So you're not thinking, because my thought was like if AI continues to develop that fast, we're going to have universal basic income. And then some people are going to work and some people are going to just enjoy lives. Do you think that might be a reality?

I think people like competing for things. Look, it's possible. Like if you got to a point where you had enough, you know, kind of the science fiction, the Star-trane, the Star- kind of future where you had enough, you know, kind of robots that were producing everything, have produced, you know, all of our material needs. Robots who put your kids to bed, do you all agree. And it's possible. But by the way, if you even, if you think about, like, how long it will take to build all those robots? Well, like, I don't know, it's so fast.

Like, I've been Silicon Valley for 10 years. San Francisco full of self-driving cars. Yeah. And 10 years ago, I couldn't imagine that. Yes. Although, there's still a limited number of those cars that are waymoes. There's still many more Ubers and many more lifts. I'm just saying there's physical constraints

in the creation of that world. That's one of the reasons why people are like, because I talk to the same Silicon Valley people you do, and it's like, we're gonna have universal basic income in five years, like no chance. Okay, so do you think in our lifetime? Not impossible. Look, in one hand is like all the physical constraints

of building everything that matters, you know, cars and clothing and houses and all the rest of this stuff. But then also it gets to, you know, part of what, you know, kind of the human impulse is, like, we compete, as you know, when a lot of people we work with and work alongside here, you know, aren't just content to say, well, I've got a house that's in, you know, downtown Burling game. That's, you know, two bedrooms. You know, I want the big house in Atherton. You know, and so that kind of competing still happens. And so people will still have that as kind of an impulse and want that in various ways. And you see it not just in economics, but also, of course, in sports teams and all the rest of this.

And the intention economy and all of this. And so I tend to think that there's also this human factor that isn't the, oh, I'm just going to be happy, you know, kind of reading books, gardening, et cetera. And so I tend to think that the kind of we are all one nation of retirees or one species of retirees. I think that's almost certainly not the future. The question is how does it blend between it? And obviously the people who are working hard want to have a differential reward for it. They want something that plays into it. That doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't UBI, but like you may even need to be what

is called CBI, which is conditional basic income. Because in order to still be engaged in society, it's like, well, no, you can have a UBI but you have to spend at least 10 hours a week doing community service, doing something that helps the local seniors or helps the local schools or something like that. So you're engaged in society and you're invested in. It's really important for longevity. Yes, exactly. So what the shape is, I think, is still very, very TBD and further out than most of the technology

visionaries will have. That makes me, you know, I feel better. Okay, let's talk about it from yourship. What I noticed, like my startup, we build a search engine for study programs. If you ask me now, like would I build something like this in 2025? Of course not. I will just build an AI. bought. So it looks like a lot of business ideas, especially online. There is, you only have like

two or three months before Open AI comes up with another model that solves your problem. Yes. Do you think there is a chance to build like a company that's bigger than the mega seven? Oh, almost for sure. I continue to invest. I continue looking to do that. And I think there will be, I think we're, you know, whatever count you have, five, seven, I think there will be 10, 15 over the next five to 10 years. I think we're broadening out that way. Now, you don't do it by building a company that is like, I'm going to build the new iPhone company.

Like I just have a new idea for an iPhone. It isn't, like, once a company is really established in its position, you don't actually take it from behind. What you do is the technology gives you a different angle and you start building from something else. Who would have thought five to ten years ago that Nvidia would be? be the, yes. Oh, yeah. Right. So it's different angles by which it happens. Now, and the fact that, you know, there's, you know, going to be a limited number of what are called frontier models,

you know, the largest scale AI models, doesn't mean that there aren't room for mega AI startup companies because it's not only the technology model is not the only thing that matters. It's kind of like how is it productize, how is it integrated into people's lives, what your go-to-market strategy, how do those things work? And you can still create businesses that have network effects, marketplaces, other kinds of things that can be, in fact, very big. And so we at Greylock, myself, we're kind of looking at all of the things that could create the next big mega companies. And that's generally speaking what you're looking at. Now, that being said, if someone came along now and said, I'm going to try to build the next open AI from scratch right now,

I was like, well, there is an open AI that's doing a really, really good job. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed sponsored jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications, and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this shell will get a $75 sponsor job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. We're the Hartford, with decades of experience ensuring millions of unique small businesses.

When it comes to your small business insurance. Thank you. One size, absolutely does not fit all. Get a quote or find an agent today at thehartford.com slash small business. What should entrepreneurs look at? What industries? The thing that I had predicted, you know, 15 months ago when I was talking to my partners at Greylock, is that we were going to see a whole bunch of enterprise apps.

We're going to see, you know, kind of work. workflow, productivity, coding apps, legal assistance, medical assistance, tutors, all that stuff. All which is great and say, look, I'm happy to invest in a bunch of these things. It's not a billion dollar company. Well, things don't start as a billion dollar company. It's the question of where, how big and strategic and economic do these businesses get. And so, now for me, I tend to like to be surprised by the entrepreneur who's thinking in a new direction that most people aren't thinking. was like one of the reasons I, like, the first investment that I brought to Greylock was Airbnb, right?

Because it's similar things. Like, literally, like, my partners of Greylock was like, people are going to rent a room or a house from other people? Like, is this real? And that kind of thing. And so I similarly like to look for those kinds of things with an AI. It's like, what's something about the use of AI that most of the entrepreneurs who are all heading towards doing coding assistance or productivity apps or new security paradigms haven't quite gotten that's like that new way of thinking. And it's one of the reasons why, like, for example, when we were talking about your daughter is that the role for creativity, the role for, you know, kind of human, you know, understanding

humanities and so forth is still actually, in fact, very important because predicting what those markets might be, what people might want at scale is extremely important. And that's the kind of thing I'm looking for. Do you have a feeling of like the markets? Some. That would be like completely changed by AI and that's the opportunity. Oh, look, an obvious one is kind of looking at the set of different categories that people aren't, you know, per se thinking about, you know, whether it's marketplaces or networks,

a very, human networks of various sorts, and saying, hey, can AI do something interesting here? And, you know, I don't usually, when I'm ideating on ideas, say them in a... Okay. Of course, yeah. Because my top videos are like top ten business ideas or whatever. But like it's just interesting where you're looking at like health care or education. In general, like we're talking not about entrepreneurship, but like in general, where do you feel like the biggest change is going to happen with AI? Like what's going to be transformed?

I'm hoping healthcare. Well, I think healthcare is an obvious and very important one. Think about we have the technology today to have a medical assistant on your smartphone that's better than your average doctor. that's available 24 by 7 to everyone the smartphone that runs it under, call it a couple dollars an hour in terms of compute costs to run it. We should get that as soon as possible.

That doesn't mean doctors out of work. There's all kinds of things for doctors to do. Because among other things, the app may say, hey, these are the three things in most probability from these things, but then the doctor knows, oh, these are the things that I'm seeing in the symptom that you didn't tell the AI that's actually really important that we need to do.

There's all kinds of, and then, And a doctor can spend more time with patients because the A, like, hey, look, I had this whole conversation with my medical assistant and here's what I came up with and goes, oh, well, let's spend more time on this one and spend some time because that's all faster given the economics of it. So I think that is clearly going to happen, should happen, should happen as fast as possible. Another one is a tutor for every subject on every age. And to make this kind of like a personal comment, like I've always been curious to understand

quantum mechanics better because we have this whole new world of quantum computing and I'm trying to understand it. And I can repeat the stories that we read. But understanding it in some depth is one of the things I've always wanted to do. Well, now I have a tutor that's infinitely patient. They can say, oh, here's the thing that you need to understand. These are the questions you have of what the observer effect in quantum mechanics is. And here are some of the ways to think about it. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, I'm going to wrap up with two final questions. Can you tell me What are your three favorite AI apps? My three favorite AI apps, I will say four.

All right, in part because my own inflection pie has to be one of them. So I'll be three in addition. ChatGBT, GBT, from kind of like a research assistant, mid-journey, from the creation and thinking of bringing me into kind of visual imagination and, and kind of being able to create things visually, which I never was able to do before. And then, you know, partially because I've been thinking a lot about we as everyday people are all going to have a coding copilot. So I've been playing a lot with Microsoft's copilot and coding and getting myself back

into that to understand how this is going to transform everyone's use of phones and computers. Yeah. And the fourth is yours. Yes, inflections pie. Which part of it was training a chatbot to be as good at EQ as it is at IQ To be kind of engaged and warm in the conversation and I think we've actually had a great industry-wide Impacts I think as people have looked at it they've gone oh that's really important We're going to add some of that into what we're doing

Okay, and the last question is because you're doing the AI version of you which looks really realistic now that I see in real life because it's been shown me all the videos Should everyone think about creating an AI version of themselves? And have you thought about, like, have your opinion of your legacy changed once you've created the AI? Because it can live longer than you, it can live for years. Although at the moment, my AI agents live shorter than me because we're revising them so much. So right now, it's actually, it's shorter. But, you know, I do think that everyone ultimately should consider it. I mean, especially if you, you know, you have kids and they have grandkids, and they may

something that's kind of... It's like generations can talk to each other now. Exactly. So like that could be a very human enhancing case. Obviously folks who are doing stuff in media like you are like I am that's very useful in various ways and we've had read AI give you know keynotes at conferences and other kinds of things. Yeah, I always just at that conference. Exactly.

And so I think that's another thing. Your front end is not the phone directly calling you, but you could imagine like their front end is your AI agent, I'm trying to remember, are we, like, oh, yeah, I remember who you are. And it's like, oh, are we meeting for a coffee tomorrow, two or three? Oh, it's three. And it's okay. And that could all happen with the agent. Or I really need to get to read right now. What's the issue? Let's talk about it. Oh, wait a minute. This does sound important. Let me see if I can get them on the phone. That's awesome. Even like adopting someone's mindset, because I sometimes ask Chachipati,

can you think like this person? Yes, exactly. That's very useful. Thank you so much, Reed. You gave me a lot of hope. Because I was like, oh my God, it's taking over everything. But it's actually enhancing us. And this is what your new book is about, right? Yes. And we're doing all kinds of little AI things to also enhance and promote it. That's awesome.

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Thank you. Thank you.