Reid Hoffman is leaving Microsoft’s board to go ‘founder mode’ with startup Manus

Key points

• In Brief After a very profitable decade on Microsoft’s board, Reid Hoffman is stepping down, the company announced Thursday.
• Hoffman joined the board after Microsoft bought his company LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in 2016. Hoffman was on Microsoft’s board when it invested its first $1 billion into OpenAI in 2019. Hoffman was one of OpenAI’s original investors and served on the model maker’s board until he stepped down in 2023, citing too many potential conflicts of interest to continue.
• He was also on Microsoft’s board when the tech giant entered into one of those non-acquisition, acqui-hire deals for $650 million with his AI startup Inflection AI.
• Microsoft hired Inflection co-founder Mustafa Suleyman through that deal.
• Hoffman said on a recent episode of his “Possible” podcast, while talking with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, that he’s ready to go “founder mode” with his latest AI startup, Manus.