Top 90 Reid Hoffman Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “When you have an idea, a classic entrepreneurial impulse is to hold the idea close to you and not tell people and that’s almost always a mistake.”

— Reid Hoffman

52. “Not only CAN anyone be an entrepreneur, but they MUST be.”

— Reid Hoffman

53. “The future is sooner and stranger than you think.”

— Reid Hoffman

54. “So usually you have to have product distribution as more fundamental than what the actual product is.”

— Reid Hoffman

55. “It’s useful to be able to recognize whether you’re on track or not. To have that belief, but also paranoia about am I tracking against my investment thesis.”

— Reid Hoffman

56. “When I’m raising money, this fundraising, I’m thinking about the next fundraising. I’m thinking how I’m set up for it.”

— Reid Hoffman

57. “The question is: how you cross uneven ground, how you assemble networks around you.”

— Reid Hoffman

58. “It’s better to be the best connected than the most connected.”

— Reid Hoffman

59. “A little-known company with a realistic framework that appeals to entrepreneurial employees is going to be more attractive than a famous company that treats its people like disposable assets.”

— Reid Hoffman

60. “Society flourishes when people think entrepreneurally.”

— Reid Hoffman

61. “What great founders do is seek the networks that will be essential to their task. Usually it’s best to have two or three people on a team, rather than a solo founder.”

— Reid Hoffman

62. “If you’re in permanent beta in your career, twenty years of experience actually is twenty years of experience because each year will be marked by new, enriching challenges and opportunities. Permanent beta is essentially a lifelong commitment to continuous personal growth. Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’. If.”

— Reid Hoffman

63. “Part of the entrepreneurial thing is there are lots of ways to die.”

— Reid Hoffman

64. “Theodore Roosevelt’s famous dictum, “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”

— Reid Hoffman

65. “Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’. If you’re not growing, you’re contracting. If you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backward.”

— Reid Hoffman

66. “World-changing startups need to be premised on accurate contrarian theories.”

— Reid Hoffman

67. “Entrepreneurship is a life idea, not a strictly business one; a global idea, not a strictly American one.”

— Reid Hoffman

68. “A product needs to be sufficiently innovative to distinguish itself from the pack, but not so forward thinking as to alienate the user.”

— Reid Hoffman

69. “The challenge when you think about product distribution is: how are you competing for potential customers or potential members time.”

— Reid Hoffman

70. “One thing I learned in ’97, when I thought the right time to found a company was during a swing-up, is that it’s much better to start during an economic downturn. Partnerships are easier; hiring is easier; and the competition starts later.”

— Reid Hoffman

71. “Remember: If you don’t find risk, risk will find you.”

— Reid Hoffman

72. “This is classic when you begin thinking about what is a great founder is, you navigate what is apparent paradoxes.”

— Reid Hoffman

73. “I am most heartened when I’m talking to a team when they’re reasoning to each other.”

— Reid Hoffman

74. “It’s very conventional to say that you’re a contrarian these days.”

— Reid Hoffman

75. “Keeping your options open” is frequently more of a risk than committing to a plan of action.”

— Reid Hoffman

76. “One of the ways they run forward is by viewing the thing they’re doing as something that’s going to be the whole world.”

— Reid Hoffman

77. “Throwing your heart into something is great, but when any one thing becomes all that you stand for, you’re vulnerable to an identity crisis when you pivot to a Plan B.”

— Reid Hoffman

78. “When the Naysayers Are Loud, Turn Up the Music.”

— Reid Hoffman

79. “The person passionate about what he or she is doing will outwork and outlast the guy motivated solely by making money.”

— Reid Hoffman

80. “Take intelligent and bold risks to accomplish something great. Build a network of alliances to help you with intelligence, resources, and collective action. Pivot to a breakout opportunity.”

— Reid Hoffman

81. “Relationship builders, on the other hand, try to help other people first. They don’t keep score. They’re aware that many good deeds get reciprocated, but they’re not calculated about it. And they think about their relationships all the time, not just when they need something.”

— Reid Hoffman

82. “Start a personal blog and begin developing a public reputation and public portfolio of work that’s not tied to your employer.”

— Reid Hoffman

83. “Which plan offers the most learning potential?”

— Reid Hoffman

84. “In a sentence, as you meet your friends and new people, shift from asking yourself the very natural question of “What’s in it for me?” and ask instead, “What’s in it for us?” All follows from that.”

— Reid Hoffman

85. “A team in the business world will tend to perform at the level of the worst individual team member.”

— Reid Hoffman

86. “Often it’s when you come in contact with challenges other people find hard but you find easy that you know you’re in possession of a valuable soft asset.3.”

— Reid Hoffman

87. “If you are not receiving or making at least one introduction a month, you are probably not fully engaging your extended professional network.”

— Reid Hoffman

88. “If you want to find out how resourceful you can be, shrink your budget. Move your deadlines up. See how you cope. This may make you more resilient to actual hardships that inevitably arise.”

— Reid Hoffman

89. “A lot of smart people are prone to over-analysis and tend to become paralyzed by indecision.”

— Reid Hoffman

90. “Until you hear “No,” you haven’t been turned down.”

— Reid Hoffman

91. “Unfortunately, for far too many, focused learning ends at college graduation. They read about stocks and bonds instead of reading books that improve their mind. They compare their cash salary to their peers’ instead of comparing lessons learned. They invest in the stock market and neglect investing in themselves. They focus, in short, on hard assets instead of soft assets. This is a mistake.”

— Reid Hoffman

92. “Establish an identity independent of your employer, city, and industry.”

— Reid Hoffman

93. “In this sense, the world of tomorrow will be more like the Silicon Valley of today: constant change and chaos.”

— Reid Hoffman

94. “Figure out how to get into the networks because they are what amplifies your learnings, give you access to opportunity, information and Intelligence to know what to do.”

— Reid Hoffman

95. “A good career plan accounts for the interplay of the three gears – your assets, your aspirations, and the market realities.”

— Reid Hoffman