The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - CEO Diaries: If You’re Not Doing This in Business, You’re Already Behind! LinkedIn Founder, Reid Hoffman

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

Over the next six weeks, we’re bringing you the most unmissable moments from The Diary of a CEO, a masterclass in work, business, and entrepreneurship. These are the lessons that built some of the most iconic companies in the world, shared by the visionary CEOs behind them. We begin with Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn. In this powerful conversation, Reid breaks down the surprising trait that separates good entrepreneurs from the greats and why ignoring it could be your biggest mistake. He shares the story of whats like working with Elon Musk, what most people get wrong about ambition, and the brutal trade-offs that come with building at scale. You’ll learn how different leadership styles create different outcomes and what it really takes to build companies that last. Visit - www.linkedin.com/DOAC Listen to the full episode here - Spotify - https://g2ul0.app.link/kXUCbNYywTb Apple - https://g2ul0.app.link/AkpmkV6ywTb Watch the Episodes On YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/%20TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's a reason I love today's conversation. It is with the founder of a platform that we probably all use called LinkedIn. And the guy that made that platform is Reid Hoffman. The reality of running a small business is that switching off is never really an option. Even when you try, the ideas, the excitement and all the responsibility is always there. And because you're always switched on, it's only fair that your hiring partner should be too. LinkedIn jobs, who are the sponsor of this moments episode, has been that hiring partner for me and for years because it's always working away in the background. My team can post our jobs for free, share them with our networks and reach top

talent all in the same place. So let's get into today's conversation. On all these great people you've worked with, specifically during that PayPal period of your life, one of the things I was reflecting on is they're all independently successful people, but they're all very different people. And that in and of itself is evidence that there's not one version of success. There's many different types of success. Presumably there's many different types of entrepreneur, leader. Give me a flavor of the different types of entrepreneurs you've worked with.

And, and, and what, you know, cause I sat with Walter Isaacson and he talked to me about Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, etc. And I was like, Steve's really great at hiring people. Elon's not as good as at the people team building part, but he's better at this part. Yes. So no entrepreneur wins at every game. Yes. So no entrepreneur wins at every game. Generally speaking, as an entrepreneur, you should try to win to play the games that you

have a massive competitive edge on. Same thing is true. So some people, for example, like take Anil Bhusri at Workday, right? He is thoughtful, intentionally cultural building, very professional. So it's a HR product for work. His contrarian idea was going to the cloud and that people were going to do cloud software. For the first, I think it was 500 people that Workday hired, he would always do a cultural interview at the end to make sure that the first 500 people all kind of shared cultural things.

So once you get through all the competence and all the rest of the stuff, he would make sure that was a fit. And that's part of how you get cultural coherence. That's like one example, right? Another example, Elon is the, like I have a big idea and I convinced myself 100% that it's absolutely going to be the case, like, I am going to settle Mars, we're going to terraform Mars in our lifetime, which is no, it's impossible.

No human being on the planet, including Elon, is going to do that within Elon's lifetime. Right? But I'm going to go all in, I'm going to work really hard, I'm going to be technologically sophisticated, I'm going to work against the odds, right, in order to make that work. That's a, you know, a Neil, very professional, understands the workplace mark. Elon, like, I think I was like the second person he pitched SpaceX to. And his pitch though, to my defense, was, I'm going to send a turtle to Mars.

And I'm like, that's not a business. And you're competing with national governments and like Russian subsidized rocket programs and so forth. This is not a good equity. I was wrong. He was right. But it's not a good equity, you know, kind of was right. There's not a good equity kind of play. He pitched it to you as an investor? Yes. Yeah.

At what point was SpaceX at when he pitched it? That was before he started it. So it was an idea. Yes. And I'm going to send a turtle to Mars. And then it became, I want to send a gelatinous cube with plant seeds in it to Mars because they'll grow. I'm going to be the first person who will send life to Mars.

And you're like, okay. What did you think genuinely when he said that to you? I thought he'd gone off his rocker. Really? Well, yeah. Of course you would. My friend said that to me. I think I'd make a couple of calls just to check in. You know what I mean?

Like, is Elon doing okay? He just told me about this turtle. Yes. It's like, that's not a business. Has your opinion of him changed over time in terms of his potential and ability as an entrepreneur? No, no, I've always thought of him as one of the world's great entrepreneurs. Always? Yeah, all the way back to PayPal days.

Really? Yeah. No, look, he has done repetitively amazing things. Now, he pitches everything with the same level of certainty, right? Like I have this idea for online banking. I have this idea for boring tunnels under cities. I have this idea for creating a pneumatic tube for hyperloop tube. All of them, he has the same level of, I am 1000% right that this is guaranteed to be

part of the future. And I may be the unique person to make it happen. So you have to have some discernment. But his on-base batting is pretty good. For such major ideas. But it's not 100%. People kind of excuse that though, if you get one that's big, that's fine. Right.

Yeah. On the hiring side, is he up there with the best or is he not a direct hire of people like Steve Jobs was? Um, he hires well. Um, matter of fact, you can't be a great entrepreneur and not ultimately hire well. I think some people are better hires. Some people also have like, are the kind of people that people would work for forever. Elon tends to burn people out a lot.

Like, there's lots of burnt out people in his wake. And when you go and talk to those people, what you hear is some people say, that was the best work experience ever, and I never want to work for him again. And other people say, that was the worst work experience ever, and I never want to work for him again. So they're all, I never want to work for him again. So they're all, I never want to work for him again. Right?

So, you know, as kind of a dynamic, because he basically looks at them as disposable parts, and, you know, go as hard as you can, right? And then afterwards, you're out. Don't care. Because he goes so hard. Yeah, he goes hard, but he also thinks, your only relevance to me is your relevance, your only relevance to me is, can you help me with my mission?

And after you're done, after you can no longer help me with my mission, you're not relevant to me anymore. What do you think of that approach? That's not my approach. LinkedIn mirrors my approach. Literally I am referenceable by every entrepreneur that I've ever worked with, right, as a board member and as an investor, right, who, you know, even ones that I've, like, fired as CEO and so forth, those people will say, he was really good to work with on these things.

They may also have some critical things. There's no problem with that, right? But like, literally, like, when I'm pitching an entrepreneur, I just like call anyone that I've worked with. Because I try to work with people in a way that even when we're at a difficult moment, because I disagree with them intensely about how well they're doing or what they're doing or something else, that I'm doing it in a collaborative, constructive way. And so my goal is to work with people like anyone I want to work with. Brian Chesky, you know, Mark Pinkus, et cetera. I want to be able to work with them for, you know, uh, the rest of our lives.

What's interesting is I think these strategies fundamentally come down to what you think matters in life the most, because you could optimize, even you could optimize more for building more companies or something at the expense of something else. And it's a trade off of something else. Like you could go harder, but there's a trade off happening here. And we often, because Elon's done these crazy things like the cars and the Neuralynx and this tunnels and then now the AI and the X and the spaceships and stuff, we go, oh my God, that's so amazing. And I do that as well as one person can do that much. But we almost never talk about the trade off.

Yes. You're 100% right. And it's so this goes back to the point about self-awareness. It's like, it's so tempting for the like the brain to go, oh my God, I want that. That's what I want. Because you're not seeing the trade off. You're not seeing the darkness. That is 100% correct. And look, I respect it. I understand the burn people out, like treat them as disposable assets that when they burn out, you just jettison them. And you can be very, Elon's not the only entrepreneur who is very successful doing that. Right? But for example, on the other side, like if you go to Mark Zuckerberg

and you talk to the people who work for him, they're like, that was great. That was the best working experience of all. Of course I would work for them again. Interesting.