Reid Hoffman Quotes

Viral” distribution occurs when the users of a product bring more users, and those users bring additional users, and so on, much like an infectious virus spreads from host to host. Virality can either be organic — occurring during the course of normal usage of the product — or incentivized by some kind of reward.

blitzscaling is prioritizing speed over efficiency in the face of uncertainty.

All humans are entrepreneurs not because they should start companies but because the will to create is encoded in human DNA, and creation is the essence of entrepreneurship.

Chesapeake moved faster than any other company in its industry, deploying an army of land men to aggressively lease as much land as possible, with instructions to pay whatever was necessary, without knowing whether the gas deposits would justify the price. Hiring an army of land men and paying top dollar for leases sight unseen seemed inefficient…until the wells started producing.

The only time that it makes sense to blitzscale is when (whether for offensive or defensive reasons) you have determined that speed into the market is the critical strategy to achieve massive outcomes.

the role of the executive is to lead managers. For the most part, executives don’t manage individual contributors. Instead, they focus on vision and strategy. Yet they are still connected to the frontline employees because they are also responsible for the “fighting spirit” of their organizations; they need to be role models who help people persist through inevitable adversity.

blitzscaling. It is an idea that applies to many different industries, as he and Chris explain in the last section of this book. But prioritizing speed over efficiency — even in the face of uncertainty — is especially important when your business model depends on having lots of members and getting feedback from them. If you get in early and start getting that feedback and your competitors don’t, then you’re on the path to success. In any business where scale really matters, getting in early and doing it fast can make the difference. This is especially true for two-sided business models, where you have two user groups that create positive network effects for each other. For example, LinkedIn wants to attract people who are looking for work as well as employers who want to hire them. Airbnb wants guests looking for a place to stay as well as hosts with space to rent. Uber wants to attract drivers as well as riders.

we suspect that the market for food delivery from existing restaurants — a pure commodity business — is unlikely to offer any lasting competitive advantages that would justify an expensive blitzscaling campaign.

Everything in life has some risk, and what you have to actually learn to do is how to navigate it.

Part of the journey that we entrepreneurs are on is learning how to separate our winning instincts from our losing ideas. I think, as a rule of thumb, if you’re a good entrepreneur you can assume that your instincts are right 95 percent of the time and your ideas might be right 25 percent of the time.

Until you hear “No,” you haven’t been turned down.

a company’s business model describes how it generates financial returns by producing, selling, and supporting its products.

In the context of the alliance, the tour of duty represents an ethical commitment by employer and employee to a specific mission. We see this approach as a way to incorporate some of the advantages from both lifetime employment and free agency.

If you’re willing to accept the risks of blitzscaling when others aren’t, you’ll be able to move faster than they will. If the prize to be won is big enough, and the competition to win it is intense enough, blitzscaling becomes a rational, even optimal strategy.

Great companies and great businesses often seem to be bad ideas when they first appear because business model innovations — by their very definition — can’t point to a proven business model to demonstrate why they’ll work.