LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman leaving Microsoft board after decade

Microsoft LinkedIn said Friday that co-founder Reid Hoffman is leaving the software company’s board of directors after almost a decade.

Microsoft said Hoffman, 58, notified the board of directors Tuesday of his decision not to run for re-election. a filing. He will remain a director until Microsoft’s annual meeting at the end of the year.

After founding LinkedIn in 2002 and growing it into the leading site for professionals to connect and recruiters to find talent, Hoffman sold the company to Microsoft in 2016 for $27 billion. He joined Microsoft’s board of directors at the beginning of the following year.

Hoffman was among OpenAI’s donors when it was founded as a nonprofit organization in 2015. While Microsoft has forged a close alliance with OpenAI through major investments and technology partnerships, Hoffman will leave the OpenAI board in 2023.

“By stepping down from the board, I can proactively eliminate potential downside issues for both OpenAI and all Greylock portfolio companies I support,” Hoffman wrote at the time.

Hoffman is now the co-founder of Manas, which calls itself an “AI domestic biopharmaceutical company.” Recently, Hoffman told Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella that he should focus on this project.

“I should really be going into founder mode at the end of the year,” Hoffman said in a podcast with Nadella on Friday.

Hoffman was also the co-founder of the AI ​​startup Inflection, along with Mustafa Süleyman, founder of the DeepMind AI lab. Google Purchased in 2014. In 2024, Suleiman and several other Inflection employees will join Microsoft, Microsoft said. Suleyman currently works on the development of generative artificial intelligence models as CEO of Microsoft AI.

Hoffman has been involved in some controversy lately.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice released documents showing communications between Hoffman and financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was arrested on child sex trafficking charges before he died by suicide in a New York prison. hoffman he apologized Because she was involved with Epstein.

Hoffman has long been a donor to Democratic political campaigns. Reuters Last week, it was reported that the Justice Department was investigating a group with ties to Hoffman for their contributions to E. Jean Carroll’s legal fight against President Donald Trump.

“E is investigating me for supporting Jean’s case; the jury found Trump liable for sexually assaulting her and the appeals court upheld the verdict,” Hoffman wrote. in x.

Before founding LinkedIn, Hoffman was an executive vice president at LinkedIn. PayPal. He was also a prominent venture capitalist and became general partner of venture firm Greylock in 2009.

WRISTWATCH: Watch CNBC’s full interview with LinkedIn Co-Founder Reid Hoffman in Sun Valley