LinkedIn’s Hoffman: Impact of Social Networks Will Only Grow

Entrepreneur and investor Reid Hoffman has backed or helped build over 50 ventures, including groundbreaking companies like PayPal, Facebook, Groupon, Flickr, and of course professional networking juggernaut LinkedIn, which he co-founded. So what does one of the country’s most prolific investors think about the future of social networking, a phenomenon some say is already dying? “We are in the first inning,” Hoffman says. “People are still learning what does it mean to have these networks be a fundamental part of their life.” Hoffman believes as people “realize the networked age,” any number of possibilities for building new and evolving networks—perhaps around sports, religion, and journalism—will emerge. “There’s a variety of still even fundamental social networks to be created,” he says.