LinkedIn Co-Founder Reid Hoffman Says Building A Startup Means Embracing The 'Pain'—And The 100 Early Employees Who No Longer Work Prove It

Who needs sleep when you’re building the next billion-dollar company? According to LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, definitely not startup founders. A video of Hoffman’s brutally honest 2017 talk at Stanford recently made the rounds on social media, and it’s making waves—again.

“If I ever hear a founder talking about ‘this is how I have a balanced life’—they’re not committed to winning,” Hoffman told students during the university’s “How to Start a Startup” class. 

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His message? If you want comfort, keep your day job. If you want to build something world-changing, prepare to go all in.

Startups Are Built on Sweat, Sacrifice, and Very Little Sleep

This isn’t just motivational fluff. Hoffman’s philosophy was the real-life rulebook for how LinkedIn got off the ground. 

Even with one-third of early employees having families, “taking time off was not an option,” said on the “Diary of a CEO” podcast late last year—except for dinner. “Sure, go home, have dinner with your family. Then, after dinner, open up your laptop and return to the shared work experience.” 

That work ethic paid off when Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in 2016 for $26.2 billion. Hoffman notes with pride that the roughly 100 early employees who've since moved on are living proof.

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But that level of intensity isn’t new to Hoffman. Before LinkedIn, he was part of the early PayPal crew. Back then, they didn’t even go home for dinner—it was served right at the office.

“The people that think that’s toxic don’t understand the startup game, and they’re just wrong,” Hoffman said in the podcast. “The game is intense. And by the way, if you don’t do that, eventually, you’re out of a job.”

And he’s not apologizing for that view. “Startups are, by nature, dead,” he said. “You have to fight for life.” He insists the grind is part of the deal—and if anyone disagrees, they don’t have to play. “Working at a startup is a choice.” 

Hoffman’s words echo across the tech world. Look at VSCO, the once-trendy photo app many wrote off as a fad after the “VSCO girl” wave. But under new leadership, it’s proving the hustle still works.

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When Eric Wittman stepped in as CEO in 2023, VSCO was fighting to stay relevant. Under his watch, it finally turned a profit in 2024. According to Business Insider, under Wittman’s leadership, VSCO introduced VSCO Pro—a subscription service offering advanced editing tools and a library of over 200 presets—which has attracted 160,000 subscribers, significantly boosting the company’s revenue.

Webflow CEO Linda Tong endured 700 days of failure as the chief product officer at a mobile startup, Tapjoy. However, she embraced the struggle. “I struggled to lead effectively, but that challenging period became one of my most valuable experiences,” she wrote in Fortune. Her resilience through the tough spell hardened her enough; she now runs a $4 billion company.

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