Rapid Response: Reid Hoffman on Trump's election and what's next

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1:18Hey, everyone. It's Bob. Today, I'm talking with Reid Hoffman, co-founder at LinkedIn and partner at Greylock, about this week's election of Donald Trump as president. Reid's been a vocal critic of Trump's, but the day after the election, he posted online about a peaceful transfer of power and the hard work of bridging divisions. Reid wrote that, quote, I hope that the next four years will be our strongest yet. Reid and I talk now about what those four years might look like, what the impact will be on Silicon Valley, and what business lessons he's taking away from his experience in politics. I'm Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response.

2:06I'm Bob Safian, and I'm here with Reid Hoffman. Reid, thanks for doing this today. My pleasure. It's always great to talk to you, Bob, even in, you know, otherwise difficult weeks. Yeah. So over the past couple of years, you've not been shy about your wariness about Donald Trump as a presidential candidate. You put a lot of money behind that effort. You became a public figure in that opposition. Even on Election Day, you released a video on social media urging people to reject Trump. The country has gone a different way. Um, what, what have the past couple of days been like for you since, since Trump was elected?

2:51Well, you know, obviously it's this weird place where you're basically hoping you were wrong, right? Because there were, there were a number of folks who I talked to who were like, look, you know, Trump's, you know, rhetoric on the campaign trail, you know, is extreme because that's the way he, you know, gets his news and attention and all the rest. And it isn't really going to be the way he's going to govern. So like it isn't going to be, you know, kind of crony capitalism with tariff wars. It isn't going to be, you know, retribution to so-called enemies within, you know, it isn't going to be all that stuff.

3:27That's just kind of his, you know, kind of media campaigning and is actually going to, kind of snap back to a, you know, what's kind of good for business. And obviously, I feared and fear that they're wrong. But now, obviously, today, I'm hoping that they're right. And, you know, and it's kind of weird to kind of have the, well, I was making as strong a case I could the other direction. But in this case, you know, kind of I'm hoping that— That you were wrong. That I was wrong. Yeah. So— Yeah, I mean, the stock market sure took off once the results were clear, which is an indication that investors feel like Trump and the Republican Party are good for business.

4:22Did that surprise you? No, not really, in part because the stock market tends to respond to short-term judgments about things like tax rates or stimulus packages or other kinds of things. Regulatory environment, that kind of thing. Yeah. And so the general anticipation is that someone who is going to be more broadly laissez-faire business stimulus versus kind of call it, you know, kind of broad -based, you know, kind of lower-income community inclusion, that that's going to be – that that will be, you know, kind of reflected in, hey, it'll be a good time to be a stock market equity holder. And that, you know, we saw that even in, you know, kind of, you know, Trump's first presidency as kind of the initial, you know, kind of takeoff to it.

5:36And so, you know, stock markets don't really predict as a whole, you know, things that are, you know, months in advance unless really everybody sees it. I mean, one of the things that struck me about the results from the election sort of shows that voters have this strong dissatisfaction about their financial situation. even though really like the economy hasn't actually been that bad historically speaking. I mean, inflation has certainly taken a bite, but the job market is strong. Why do you think so many Americans feel so dissatisfied? Look, one, I think most Americans don't really realize the impact of what all this kind of stimulus and COVID means, right?

6:34They don't understand that that's like when I get a free hamburger today, that makes all hamburgers. It's going to cost me something tomorrow. It's going to cost me something tomorrow. And they don't have enough of a global perspective to realize that what Biden has actually managed is a lower inflation than in the other developed countries, right? And so they've actually been better off because of it. All they know is it is inflation. It is harder to, you know, make my bills work. And by the way, of course, one should feel very sympathetic to that. But so then when someone comes along and tells them, you know, this person has totally sucked and kind of messed up your economy, they're like, Like, well, boy, it feels that way.

7:22It feels that way because, like, it's harder for me to make, you know, make all the economics work in my life. And I'm, you know, I'm on one hand, obviously, you know, yes, that's true. And it feels that way, but you don't actually understand that this is the result of all the COVID stimulus, right? And that didn't really come through this time around. Yeah, and I think part of it is, look, I mean, among the challenges that I have with a set of people within the Democratic Party is to say the most fundamental thing that pays for everything is the success of businesses from small to large. And so you should always be pro-business, pro-business growth fundamentally in all of this, even as you try to also get, you know, broad inclusion, green climate change, a bunch of other things.

8:23It's not business as the enemy for that. It's business as the tool and getting there because you essentially pay for everything. And so the problem, of course, that then because there's this turmoil within the Democratic Party, the Democratic leadership doesn't articulate as a clear pro-business, you know, kind of beat the drum because there's a bunch of people who are like, business is the opponent in this case. And you're like, actually, in fact, it's not business. But there's some businesses that might be particularly un-green or some businesses that might be particularly having a problem with, like, for example, health care issues, you know, like tobacco and so forth as kind of social costs.

9:02But you have to kind of be there. And since you're not there, then when people come along and say, well, your life is having more difficulty economic because the Democrats in general are, quote unquote, socialists, of which it doesn't help that some of them do call themselves socialists, then that becomes the kind of swing vote issue. And I think that's probably the, you know, if one were to make a diagnosis of the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back in, you know, this week's election, it's probably that. I mean, there's still a stack of other issues and legitimate issues around, you know, where does the notion of gender and strong leadership play into the culture is obviously a legitimate issue and one that we should be, you know, working to improve as our culture and, you know, a stack of other things.

9:56But my guess is if the economics thing had been more clear to people where they had felt that there was more decisiveness, maybe the election would have gone the other way. There's going to be a lot of post-mortem quarterbacking, and I'm a little loathe to add too much to it. I mean, listening to you, are you from here sort of still focused on the political sphere? Are you like, I'm just going to return to business? Like, what are your next steps from here? Yeah. I mean, generally speaking, my whole kind of participation in politics has been a weird thing because I'm more naturally a founder, a builder, an investor.

10:45It's what I've spent my entire life doing. and it's only with a kind of a trying to help what I think is the kind of the broader country on what I think the platforms to making the country stronger are that I've kind of gotten engaged. And it was kind of a path where I'd find some leaders, you know, both Democrats and Republicans that I would support. And then as it got kind of more dire, because, you know, I kind of, you know, find that like the importance of truth telling in discourse is one of the things I think is really fundamentally important. And so it was, you know, kind of getting involved in that.

11:34I think all of that kind of means is that, you know, it's like, look, I made the, you know, the kind of strongest efforts in cases I could. And now it's, you know, kind of back to the stuff that I'm much more naturally, you know, that I know that my skill set naturally resolves to, you know, building companies, founding companies, investing in companies. You know, what does AI mean for the elevation of humanity? You know, what kinds of new, you know, kind of platforms like LinkedIn that can help evolve because, you know, part of it is bringing prosperity to the broadest possible community. What kinds of things can you do in order to do that?

12:16And I think that's the focus. I have a book coming out in January called Super Agency, which is, you know, how can AI really increase human agency, give us superpowers, where that is actually, in fact, kind of an optimistic take. I think that's where continuing the mission of elevating humanity, but I think that's where the focus will be for a long time. I mean, a lot of Democrats, folks who supported Harris, are not particularly optimistic right now. You are choosing, trying, emphasizing optimism still? Well, look, I think it's a little bit like I said at the opening, which is now I'm in this weird position where I'm fervently hoping I was wrong.

13:08Right? And by the way, you don't just sit back and hope. You try to help. Like I'm going to try to grow things within the American economy. I'm going to try to make stuff work out as strongly and as best as they can. And I think if I were to continue to try to play in politics, I think I'd only have negative influence because I think it would just be oppositional. So I think it's best to be trying to add in the things that I can add in, which is on the business side. and on the kind of technology strategy side, on the investment side. And so I think that's where I'll be focused. So what do you think the future of Silicon Valley will be like under Trump?

14:04What's going to change? Is it going to stay the same? Well, I think it's frankly kind of too early to tell. You know, there's kind of, call it a hope and a fear. The hope is that, you know, just as I was mentioning at the top of the discussion that, you know, kind of wrong about, you know, kind of Trump doing grifter capitalism with his own cryptocurrencies and only doing the things that kind of benefit him, but rather kind of working towards the whole, like the platform of Silicon Valley and creating outcomes and doing that. And if that plays out, then I think Silicon Valley can – it's perhaps the strongest kind of current American industrial complex.

14:54And perhaps it can continue to really thrive. And one of the things that I've been an advocate for for decades has been how do we have Silicon Valley thrive and then make that help the rest of the American industries and countries as a way of doing that. And then the fear, of course, is it becomes a kind of a crony capitalist, you know, like only things for my friends and not things for my personal opponents. and in which case I think there will be a real – I think it will be quelling upon a lot of – it will be a reduction in the economic outcome. One of the things that I think a lot of people don't track is for the majority of the scale, Silicon Valley companies, over half their revenue is overseas.

15:44It's one of the very strong exports. And it's like, well, if you're quelling it and kind of screwing it up, you're then causing kind of a reduction of the flow of economics into the country, which fundamentally, however prosperity gets divided through taxation, through local spending and else, you need successful export industries in order to do that. And so what you want as a country is as many strong export industries as you can manage of vigor and strength. And I think, you know, kind of our current best is all the tech, and probably given we're living in a technological age continues to be such.

16:31And so that's part of the reason why you get back to, well, what am I doing? You know, well, what I'll be doing is trying to build those really strong, you know, kind of American, you know, scale export industries, and then have that, you know, be bringing prosperity into the U.S. and then trying to make sure that as much as we can, I do this both through companies and through philanthropy like opportunity work, try to get the rest of the country benefiting from the jobs and economics from these industries as well. I mean, listening to you talk about sort of not knowing what the next Trump term might look like, might actually be like.

17:12I mean, a lot of the listeners on this show are business leaders themselves. And it sounds like you're saying like maybe it's a little early to be thinking about adjusting strategy. I mean, lots of businesses are excited about the prospect of a Trump administration, obviously. But is your advice now to sort of wait and see? Are there things that, you know, that you think businesses should be looking at, should be thinking about moving on now? Well, probably the principal thing would be planning on volatility a little bit, right? That's kind of the combination of hope and fear. Like if probably my direction would be think of some unevenness.

17:56Like, for example, if tariffs actually happen and we have a tariff war that's terrible for U.S. export industry, will reduce American prosperity and also increase costs across a lot of things for folks. So obviously we try to make sure that that doesn't really happen. And, you know, where we would see that it would be kind of more grifter capitalism if it's only happening in this industry, like it's happening in a way that would only benefit, that, you know, kind of certain industries that the benefit of, or certain companies versus other companies in the industry and so forth, then you know that you're not going to be kind of elevating the whole platform.

18:43Anyway, see, it's kind of a prepare for multiple options, I think is probably the, you know, I suppose overly committed one. Plans B, as you like to say, right? Yes, exactly. Not one plan B, but plans B. Do you have any insight about what a Trump administration might mean for the future of AI? Not really. I suspect that the whole, like, we're going to rescind the executive order on AI is probably similar to the we're going to throw out Obamacare, right? Which is the we actually don't, in fact, have a better idea. And so we're going to campaign against it to show why the earlier people were complete idiots and terribly bad, right?

19:32But actually, in fact, we don't have a better idea. So actually, we're just going to keep doing their idea, right? Because, you know, here we are, you know, after, you know, a complete Trump term and there was no repeal of Obamacare, you know. So I think it's probably similar, but that obviously could be different depending on various folks being in the mix and kind of what the conception of AI is. The one thing I would say that I think is what I'm hopeful for is that the belief in the enablement of the American AI industry across multiple companies is, in fact, I think extremely important. And we'll see whether or not that's what's playing or if there will be a, you know, kind of a crony capitalist play and, you know, obviously hope for the - Narrowing, in other words, a narrowing of opportunity.

20:38Yeah, and fear about the second. Has the election outcome, your experience in this, has it changed your perspective at all about the role that business and tech leaders like yourself should play in politics and in civic activity?

21:09I've stumped you? No, I'm kind of thinking about it. Look, this is obviously a week of a lot of processing because, you know, I was really putting in as much energy as I could to try to articulate, you know, kind of what some really key things about, I think, what an important part of the future vision is. And, you know, and while, you know, it's really interesting that, you know, all said and done, Trump won the popular vote, you know, one of the things to obviously remember is, is that the, is that, you know, even winning the popular vote, it's like, it's like, like, like a very, like the country is very divided.

22:08And so it's a question of how do you get to unity? Because even if you go, well, we won the popular vote by a million out of hundreds of millions. Yeah. Well, it's not hundreds, but it's probably more like rounds up to hundreds. Right. And so out of votes, it's like, okay, well, that's winning and winning the popular vote. But it's like there is an entire country here. And so I think that the fact that – look, I think it's going to be important that tech is more and more – is increasingly – it's shocking to say it's an increasingly important part of American society. Our life, our work, our productivity, our creation of new industries, et cetera.

22:58And so tech leaders being involved in essentially what the political discussion is about what this means for us as a society and where we should be going and what it means for how you invest in business is also what your tech strategy is, I think is actually very important. I just think we need to get to a – what I want to get to is a much better discourse about it. And that's what I – that was the pausing. It was like, how do you get there? And so it's kind of reflecting of, you know, what I think is, you know, kind of the problems with a lot of social media and the problems with, like, you know, I think it was great what Mark Cuban was going on shows.

23:35You know, I myself, you know, went on some shows to kind of talk about it. And having discourse, I think, is really important. I mean, you said you don't want to have like a negative or oppositional influence with the Trump administration. But it doesn't sound like you'd be, I don't know, restrained or shy about speaking out again on any issues that you felt like warranted it during Trump's next four years. Like, are you chastened in that way? Or are you like, no, if something comes up, I'm going to speak my mind? Look, ultimately, I will speak my mind. And I think the precise times where you feel fear of, call it political persecution or retaliation, are times where especially people who have some basis of power need to speak up to give the kind of A, voice to it, and B, shelter.

24:42So it isn't that I'm planning on being silenced, but it is beholden, I think, upon me and upon folks to say, look, we're in this boat together. Let's try to make this boat work as best as possible. and precisely part of the reason I was so opposed to Trump was creating division and like, you know, kind of, you know, anything in the division that leads to like the January 6th insurrection or, you know, kind of, you know, speeches about enemies within and use of the military for that is I think all extremely unhealthy for the country, for the democracy and so forth. But that means that like, you know, what then my work becomes is like, well, okay, how do I make, you know, what are the tools available for me in the next, you know, four years to make the country as successful as possible?

25:47What are the things where I can contribute in good ways? And I just don't think that one should ever adopt a, let's try to make administration X unsuccessful. I think it's a, let's try to make the country as successful as possible. And I think that's part of what I think can be great about business and American business. That's the thing that I will be trying to do. And my tools will be creating the next generation of hopefully amazing and industry-transforming tech companies. So that's what I think the play looks like. But of course, like if it's like, oh, look, there's a whole bunch of really crappy tariffs, you know, I'll comment on it, you know, in the same way that, you know, I got a bunch of grief for commenting on, you know, Lena Khan's, you know, tech and M &A strategy.

26:50Because talking about what I think is important for the health of the country is something I'll do when I think it's useful or helpful for me to do so. I mean, I guess one of the things, you know, we're at a point where it could be that the White House and both houses of Congress are controlled by the same party, which doesn't happen very often in American history. And that, you know, the checks and balances that are part of our system may be more, you know, more leaning one way. And I'm just curious if you feel like, you know, business leaders and businesses like play a role in that checks and balances process sort of, you know, in terms of what's at stake for the country and that prosperity that you talk about.

27:42I think business leader, this is one of the things I think people misunderstand about business, which is, or some people, which is business leaders are not, business leaders, businesses are actually made to be very adaptable. They're made to adapt to customer and market demands. They're made to adapt to, you know, employee, you know, kind of culture actions. They're made to adapt to shareholder interest and demands kind of as the lowest common denominator across them and to be broad based on it. They're made to be adaptable to regulatory and government pressure. You know, businesses are not, you know, bulwarks against, you know, kind of antagonistic political pressure.

28:31That's the whole like, hey, a whole bunch of my customers are both Democrats and Republicans. Hey, a whole bunch of my shareholders are both Democrats. And, you know, so they're adaptive. They're not like the check and balance. They're the, oh, this is what the rules are. Okay, great. We'll follow these rules. Right. You know, and if you say on the rules or chaos, then the answer is, OK, well, then we're going to be very cautious and we're not going to invest very much. Right. If you have if you have, you know, like really antagonistic rules or very broken rules. And that's part of my worry about, you know, kind of, you know, crony or grifter capitalism is is is is it causes an enormous quelling across the entire the entire ecosystem.

29:13And so it's like, no, that's why we want rule of law. That's why we want to be encouraging everyone to be building stuff because it matters. And it's also one of the reasons why, you know, bad regulation can be really bad and part of the, you know, kind of, we don't want to speak out against that. And so anyway, so that's the, you know, that's, I don't think expecting business to be, I think it'll be a, it'll be a, hey, look, our voice in as much as we have one is let's just allow a bunch of business to prosper. But on the other hand, of course, you can get regulatory capture by large industries or by industries that have disbalanced, you know, companies that have disbalanced political power and other kinds of things.

30:01And, you know, then that can create, you know, problems. You know, I guess I feel like for a generation of people, you being part of it in some ways, sort of making the decision that like you could have more impact on the future as a business leader than maybe going into the political or civic realm. And, you know, and I wonder whether you feel like that is shifting at all. Well, I do think it's important. I think business leaders are leaders, and I do think that even when it's kind of an unpopular opinion, speaking up against a political power that might retaliate against you, is I think, you know, like when you have a bunch of wealth and position and power, if you're not the one who's willing to speak up, then, you know, then – because, you know, courage is easier for you, right?

30:57So have that courage, I think, is really important. But on the other hand, also, of course, one of the things that people have to realize is that businesses are made to be responsive to the environments that they're in. Right. They're not like we're like, you know, for example, you know, in this moment, a bunch of Democrats, you know, people within the Democratic Party are like our business will stand up to to to oppose the Trump agenda. And the answer is broadly the answer is like, how do we continue to make our businesses thrive and prosper, which will mean for jobs and a bunch of other stuff?

31:44And so what's the environment for doing that is the primary question. And look, I think fundamentally, as per the optimism point that you asked about and made earlier, look, I think optimists are what build the world. And so you ultimately have to, in whatever circumstance of adversity, this is the folks who may feel particularly disheartened, is like, okay, how do I – I may think that things are going to get turbulent and difficult, but how do you build positively? is in each case the question you need to be asking. And I think that's always available, no matter how challenging times can become.

32:28Well, I couldn't agree more, Reid. Thank you. Thanks for coming on and sharing with us. Bob, always a pleasure. And I suspect we'll be talking again soon. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Rapid Response is a Wait What original. I'm Bob Safian. Our executive producer is Eve Trow. Our producer is Alex Morris. Assistant producer is Masha Makutonina. Mixing and mastering by Aaron Bastinelli. Theme music by Ryan Holiday. Our head of podcasts is Lital Malad. For more, visit RapidResponseShow.com.