Reid Hoffman: Shaping the AI Era, Investing in Transformation and Calling on Europe

Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, partner at Greylock, and board member at Microsoft, joined Nicolai Tangen to discuss the AI era, investing in transformation, and what Europe needs to do to get in the game. Hoffman described the current AI boom as the largest technological shift of our lifetimes—bigger and faster than the internet, cloud, or any prior cycle—because it builds on all of them. The conversation ranged from why productivity numbers haven't budged yet to how entrepreneurs think, what blitzscaling looks like in an age of scarce GPUs, and why he believes most people simply are not trying hard enough with the tools already available.

Why the Productivity Numbers Lag—and Why That Will Change

Hoffman is not surprised that AI has not yet shown up in aggregate productivity statistics. He cited the old Solow paradox—“I see computers everywhere but in the numbers”—and argued that the real bottleneck is organizational behavior, not technology. Large companies, he explained, tend to lead with risk avoidance: they run small proof-of-concept projects designed to eliminate every possible downside before deploying at scale. That approach, Hoffman said, is like refusing to drive from Oslo to Trondheim until you have eliminated every risk on the road. “You're never going to get on the road.”