The Future You Avoid Is Riskier Than the One You Face with Reid Hoffman | A Bit of Optimism Podcast

1. SSSimon Sinek0:00

   I'm going down that rabbit hole. [chuckles] What science fiction do we need these days, Reid? [laughs]

2. RHReid Hoffman0:07

   So the thing that was really magical for me, but for us-

3. SSSimon Sinek0:11

   Yeah

4. RHReid Hoffman0:12

   ... you know, in the '60s, '70s, '80s, even to some degree the early '90s, was a notion that what we're creating with technology, what we're creating as the possible human future-

5. SSSimon Sinek0:24

   Yep

6. RHReid Hoffman0:25

   ... can be amazing. Like this, the sense of the world could be much better-

7. SSSimon Sinek0:31

   Mm-hmm

8. RHReid Hoffman0:32

   ... for all human beings.

9. SSSimon Sinek0:33

   Mm-hmm.

10. RHReid Hoffman0:34

    Not to say without big challenges and navigations and issues, but it could be. And you don't have to be as simplistic as, like, "The Jetsons." Um-

11. SSSimon Sinek0:41

    Right. [pensive music]

12. RHReid Hoffman0:42

    But it just kind of a sense of what are the, what does the path ahead look like?

13. SSSimon Sinek0:47

    There are only a handful of entrepreneurs who it's safe to say that their companies changed the way we do things. Reid Hoffman is one of those entrepreneurs, and LinkedIn is one of those companies. There was a time when posting our resumes online would get us fired. [whip cracking] Now, being on LinkedIn is just how we work. His mentality of giving power back to the people has permeated every aspect of Reid's life, even his full embrace of AI and what it can do for humanity, which he writes about in his book, "Superagency." But it was our conversation about idealism, the need for it, and what happened to it that really inspired me. This is "A Bit of Optimism." [whimsical music] What did you wanna be when you were a kid?

14. RHReid Hoffman1:43

    Oh, that's interesting. There are different phases. Um, it was, um... I'd say the first thought was probably a science fiction author, um, because I was reading a lot of science fiction.

15. SSSimon Sinek1:58

    How old, how, how old are you now a- approximately?

16. RHReid Hoffman2:00

    Uh, I am... Well, my birthday was two days ago, so I'm 58 and two days. [chuckles]

17. SSSimon Sinek2:05

    Oh, happy birthday.

18. RHReid Hoffman2:06

    Thank you. And then I started realizing that you wanted to kind of m- uh, contribute to making the world better. So then I had this kind of plan, and I think it's a very science fiction, uh, enhanced plan, that I and a group of friends would all get into positions by which we could influence the world to try to make it more peaceful, less warlike, more compassionate, you know, kind of key, what we think of as essential human virtues.

19. SSSimon Sinek2:38

    Right.

20. RHReid Hoffman2:38

    And then realized that... Oh, and, [chuckles] and, and this is, this will be a very weird thing that I've never, ever said before on a public camera. My theory, now this is again a 12-year-old's theory-

21. SSSimon Sinek2:51

    Right. Okay

22. RHReid Hoffman2:53

    ... uh, is, was like, "Oh, and the right way to do that will be to become the director of the CIA." And then when I was talking about that with my dad, he bought a book for me called "The Crimes of the US Intelligence Agencies." [both laughing] And I was reading through it, like, "Oh, assassinations. Oh," [laughs] like... And I was like, "Okay, scratch that plan." Uh, and then after that, I didn't have a plan for a long time. Um, I guess through universities it was try to contribute to public intellectual discourse, which what I mean is, is who are we and who should we be as individuals-

23. SSSimon Sinek3:27

    Mm-hmm

24. RHReid Hoffman3:27

    ... and as groups. Um, and you know, I thought maybe being an academic would be a path to that, so there was a, there was a number of years where I thought I'd become a philosophy professor. Uh, and then, uh, I realized that the, that the kind of the scholarship canon of-

25. SSSimon Sinek3:45

    Yeah

26. RHReid Hoffman3:45

    ... the academic humanities was more about scholarship and less about the kind of the evolution of the human condition, about the participation and-

27. SSSimon Sinek3:53

    Yeah

28. RHReid Hoffman3:54

    ... the improvement of society. And I was like, "Okay, I don't wanna do that."

29. SSSimon Sinek3:56

    Yeah.

30. RHReid Hoffman3:57

    Fortunately, I'd gone through Stanford, so I understood, I was like, "Wait a minute. What is this software entrepreneurship thing? That could be interesting." [chuckles] And that's, you know, how I ended up on my modern path.

Episode duration: 1:06:32