Reid Hoffman is leaving Microsoft’s board to go ‘founder mode’ with startup Manus
Quick Answer
Reid Hoffman is resigning from Microsoft's board after a decade to focus on his AI drug discovery startup, Manus.
Quick Take
This shift marks a significant transition for Hoffman, who aims to leverage his expertise in AI to innovate in the pharmaceutical sector.
Key Points
- Hoffman spent a profitable decade on Microsoft's board.
- He is now focusing on his startup Manus, specializing in AI drug discovery.
- This move highlights a trend of tech leaders returning to startup roots.
- Manus aims to innovate within the pharmaceutical industry using AI.
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~2 min readIn Brief
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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, Manas. Manas is a drug discovery company that raised over $50 million through a couple of seed rounds last year. Hoffman is an investor, as is General Catalyst.
Hoffman is cited as a co-founder of Manas and chairman of the board, not the CEO, though. That job belongs to Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, a physician, biologist, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the 2011 book “The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.”
Still, Hoffman said he’s excited to give Manas more attention.
“One of the things I realized over the last month was that, we’re seeing such progress with Manas. I need to get back to founder mode,” he said. He believes the startup is making progress on “Move 37” AI, meaning AI that supersedes human creativity in chemistry, especially to combat various cancers, he added.
Correction: The startup name was originally misspelled. It has been corrected.
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