Reid Hoffman (40), founder and chair of LinkedIn, enjoys his malt whiskeys as I found when I was granted a ten minuted audience with him when he dashed over to Cambridge, UK. Reid cashed in at PayPal and is now chief blender of the best entrepreneurs and angels in social network start-ups in Silicon Valley. I overheard him say in Cambridge that “there is nothing here for me” and even heard of one entrepreneur who said “I have nothing to learn from him”. A case of poor blending, I guess.
Reid was not slow in accepting my offer to buy him a malt and glugged it down a bit like he glugs down all the start-ups in SV! He has over 50 investments including Facebook.
In theses social network companies there is normally a dominant person who will own most of the founder’s equity which is very different from the equity split in Cambridge Cluster companies. It is why I was brave enough to invest in Cambridge Temperature Concepts.
Thanks Reid and enjoy your malts both from the Highlands, the valleys and the fens! Come visit Cambridge again soon.
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