Forget Balance: Reid Hoffman’s Uncompromising Blueprint for Startup Success
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman offers a tough reality for aspiring entrepreneurs: if you want to build a company, be ready to let go of evening TV binges or sleeping in on weekends.
“If I ever hear a founder talking about, ‘this is how I have a balanced life’—they’re not committed to winning,” Hoffman said during Stanford’s “How to Start a Startup” class in 2014.
“The only really great founders are [the ones who are] like, ‘I am going to put literally everything into doing this.’”
Although this mindset isn’t new, a clip of his remarks recently resurfaced on social media, drawing fresh attention and thousands of likes.
Despite a post-pandemic shift toward valuing mental health, Hoffman’s position remains unchanged. “You’re by nature dead as a start-up,” he stated on the Diary of a CEO podcast in late 2023. “Work-life balance is not the start-up game.”
The One Exception: Dinner with Family
Even in LinkedIn’s early days, where nearly a third of employees had children, taking time off wasn’t standard. The only exception Hoffman acknowledged was dinner.
“When we started LinkedIn, we started with people who had families. So we said, sure, go home have dinner with your family. Then, after dinner with your family, open up your laptop and get back in the shared work experience and keep working.”
Conditions were even more demanding when Hoffman was involved with founding PayPal. There, dinner was served at the office to keep employees working longer hours.
“The people that think that’s toxic don’t understand the start-up game, and they’re just wrong,” Hoffman said. “The game is intense. And by the way, if you don’t do that, eventually, you’re out of a job.”
Still, he emphasized that working at a startup is a personal decision. It’s not for everyone.
But for those who do commit, the payoff can be massive. The first 100 or so employees at LinkedIn, he pointed out, no longer need to work, thanks to Microsoft acquiring the company for $26.2 billion in 2016.
Fortune reached out to Hoffman for further comment.
Embracing the Pain for Long-Term Success
Hoffman’s perspective resonates with others in the tech world who recognize that success comes with sacrifice. Consider VSCO, the photo-sharing app that peaked in popularity during the “VSCO girl” trend and later struggled to redefine its identity.
Eric Wittman took over as CEO in 2023 and helped the company turn a profit in 2024. His key to success? Embracing the challenges.
“There’s a lot of pain along that journey,” Wittman shared with Fortune. “You gotta embrace it.”
He believes the same level of grit is needed across all levels of the company—not just at the top.
“All the people I’ve invested in, they get what it takes to be modest overachievers—embrace the grit, work together with a bunch of other really great like-minded people and are just willing to grind their way through to find those wins and to grow that into something that you know is increasingly successful,” he said.
Wittman added, “When you distill it all down, those are generally the attributes that I’ve seen where you’re creating a successful company or a successful product.”
The Broader Debate on Work Culture
Hoffman’s take has reignited a broader discussion about work-life balance, echoing recent comments by Indian business leaders.
Last year, Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy sparked debate by urging young Indians to work 70-hour weeks, arguing that higher productivity is essential for national competitiveness.
“India’s work productivity is one of the lowest in the world,” Murthy said. “Unless we improve our productivity, reduce corruption, and cut bureaucratic delays, we will not be able to compete with nations that have made tremendous progress.”
He later clarified his comments, saying they reflected his personal work ethic, not a mandate. “I used to get to the office at 6.20 am and leave at 8.30 pm. That’s a fact! I have done it for 40-odd years,” he explained.
Work Ethic: A Personal Choice
Other leaders, like L&T chairman S N Subrahmanyam, also weighed in on India’s work culture, supporting the idea that a strong work ethic is essential, but also noting that work-life balance is a personal decision.
The conversation around “hard work” and generational differences in values is ongoing.
Not everyone agrees with the hard-driving philosophy. Many netizens argue that while founders and CEOs may reap large rewards, expecting the same level of sacrifice from all employees is unfair and exploitative.
Billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani offered a more balanced take in an interview with ANI: “Your idea of work-life balance should not be imposed on me, and my work-life balance shouldn’t be imposed on you.”
