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LinkedIn Co-Founder: Entrepreneurship Better Than Teaching

Note: This post was originally published on my first blog, Modite, and is now archived here.

My favorite thoughts from a recent interview with LinkedIn Co-Founder Reid Hoffman:

When you pursue an academic path, you basically write books that only 50 people will read. I wanted to have a much broader impact on the world, which you can do through software entrepreneurship. If you can create a piece of software that improves people’s lives, it’s infinitely replicable…

But 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…

One of my theses is that every individual is now a small business; how you manage your own personal career is the exact way you manage a small business. Your brand matters. That is how LinkedIn operates.

Via The Wall Street Journal.