Reid Hoffman

Founder, Executive Chairman, LinkedIn

Speculations on Web 3.0
16 minutes, 7.7mb, recorded 2011-03-30
Reid Hoffman

The successful May 23 IPO of LinkedIn (LNKD) has signalled that social media is serious business. Cofounder Reid Hoffman outlines the iterations of the web, based on user expectations and the use of data—specifically trust. Everyone is participating in a "data exhaust" that is being collected, but to what purpose?

In Web 1.0, "interactivity was a strange place we go in cyberspace." Users were anonymously testing what the web had to offer, exploring and exploiting, and learning, by trial and error, responsibilities. There was little trust; users protected their identities by using fake names. 

In Web 2.0, users started using their real names and begin to reveal their real relationships, meanwhile, marketers began assembling means of collecting data online for targeted marketing. The issue begins to be delivering effective offers that users want. Users abandon what doesn't deliver value, becomes cluttered with unwanted offers, or proves untrustworthy.

In Web 3.0, user expectations, and value to users, has to win out over more crass marketing appeals. Combinations of shared data sorts are assembled across offerings to provide more value and a more seamless experience. Security layers are made definite. The web becomes a trusted part of everyday life, travelling with the user, who depends upon it, and offering several customized mashups of data for the user's benefit. The important point, in short, Hoffman says: Good internet companies do not ambush their users.


Reid Hoffman co-founded, and is Executive Chairman of LinkedIn, which successfully went public this May, co-founded SocialNet, and was integrally involved in the founding of PayPal. Known as the most connected person in Silicon Valley, he is one of its most prolific and successful angel investors. Currently he is at Greylock Partners, where he's involved with the Greylock Discovery Fund, specialized in early-stage investing. 

Hoffman is a board observer at Airbnb, Gowalla, and Swipely, an advisor to Groupon and a director at Zynga, Mozilla Corp., Six Apart, Shopkick, and Kiva.org. He is an angel investor in numerous influential Internet companies, including Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, Ning, Six Apart and Zynga. Hoffman's areas of focus include consumer Internet, enterprise 2.0, mobile, social gaming, online marketplaces, payments, and social networks. Reid likes to work with products that can reach hundreds of millions of participants and businesses that have network effects.

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Photo: Greylock Partners