To his credit, he opened what I had, and he said, 'Interesting.

With these edits in mind, I followed my friend in, and they sarcastically felt, 'Great 12-year-olds.' I told them the edits that I had in mind, and I can still see Steve Perrin rolling his eyes. I was a geek, and at the time, fantasy role-playing was on my mind all day long. I had previously looked at one of the games the company had published, and I believed it was done wrong because the story arc needed to be different, the math was bad in some places, and the gameplay design needed to be fixed.

In response, I asked him if I could go in with him. My friend told me, 'The offices of the gaming company that we play are in my neighborhood, and I can go in.” The company was not supposed to have offices in a residential neighborhood, so they were nice to the neighbors. Reid Hoffman: Many kids have total focus obsessions, and when I was 12, fantasy role-playing games were mine. LinkedIn Co-Founder & Greylock Partners Investor Reid Hoffman Credit: LinkedIn In the interregnum between those experiences, Hoffman would become a member of the 'PayPal mafia,' an extraordinary group of entrepreneurs who were successful in launching one of the original fintech companies. He cemented his legacy as an entrepreneur identified by his first name only through LinkedIn.

Hoffman's first attempt at entrepreneurship, a social media company called SocialNet, failed, but it would provide invaluable insights that he would use in founding LinkedIn years later. He advised the CEO on improvements he should make to the game, and was given other assignments to help improve the company's games. His start in business came much earlier, however, for as a precocious 12 year old, he found his way into the offices of a company called Chaosium, which produced one of his favorite video games, RuneQuest.

Reid Hoffman is one of the legends of Silicon Valley, having been part of two of the most influential tech companies: PayPal and LinkedIn.

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