Reid Hoffman: evaluation

Transcript context

…When you say “pattern,” what does that mean, pattern the network the right way? For example, take my role as an investor at Greylock. I almost never meet with an entrepreneur that doesn’t come from an introduction from someone I trust. And part of that introduction from someone I trust is, I trust different people on different things. For example, there are some entrepreneurs that say, “Oh, this person is an absolutely great technologist,” and I go, “Well, that person doesn’t really understand technology that well, so that doesn’t matter. ” Whereas this person might say, “This person has a lot of drive and a lot of grit,” and I should pay attention to them, and they are good at that kind of thing. Then, okay, how does that fit with the project that they’re working on? I try to configure not so much . . . People would think, because I write these books and do these podcasts like Masters of Scale and other kinds of things, that I’m just trying to get the raw flow in. I’m just trying to get that person to lob an email to me from some strange corner of the world. Actually, in fact, the way that I do investing is entirely through my network. Let’s say you call up a reference. What question or questions do you ask that other skilled people do not?…

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