After a very profitable decade on Microsoft’s board, Reid Hoffman is stepping down the company announced Thursday. After Microsoft bought his company, Hoffman joined the board LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in 2016.
Hoffman was on Microsoft’s board in 2019 when it made its first $1 billion investment in OpenAI. Hoffman was one of OpenAI’s early investors and served on the model maker’s board until his resignation in 2023. referring to too many potential conflicts of interest to go on. He was also on Microsoft’s board when the tech giant entered into one of these non-acquisitions. $650 million in lease agreements With AI startup Inflection AI. Microsoft hired Inflection co-founder Mustafa Suleiman with the deal.
Speaking with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on a recent episode of the Possible podcast, Hoffman said he’s ready to go into “founder mode” with his latest AI startup. Manus. Manus is a drug discovery company It has collected more than 50 million dollars through a several seed rounds last year. Hoffman is an investor, as is General Catalyst.
Hoffman is listed as co-founder and chairman of the board of Manus, not CEO. This work was led by Dr. Dr. Owned by Siddhartha Mukherjee.
Still, Hoffman said he’s happy to focus more on Manus.
“One of the things I’ve realized over the last month is that we’re making such progress with Manus. I need to get back into founder mode,” he said. He believes the startup is making progress In “Move 37” AIartificial intelligence replacing human creativity in chemistry, especially in the fight against various cancers, he added.
