LinkedIn Founder: Double Your Income With AI Before It's Too Late | Reid Hoffman

We've seen Claude releasing this 200line code that brought the B2B market down.

We lost $300 billion of market value.

>> All of that is literally just beginning, but is all line of sight.

>> This is Reed Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, legendary investor who was among the first to see every major tech wave coming. And what he's saying now

wave coming. And what he's saying now should concern anyone with a career.

>> There aren't individual contributing workers anymore that we all deploy with a set of AIS. So what what do I do? What

people like me do?

>> Even most people who say, "Oh yeah, I'm using AI." are not using it seriously

using AI." are not using it seriously enough.

>> You've been mentioning this a lot, everyone will have a set of agents working for them. Is it possible now or we're still not quite there yet?

>> It's totally possible now.

>> So for someone who has a 9-5 job, what's the first thing they should do to double their income this year?

>> Oh, that's interesting. Maybe the

simplest one is >> and we're super excited that we're talking again a year later so we can revisit some of the things that you said last year. It's been a crazy year.

last year. It's been a crazy year.

>> Yeah.

>> And I see Chad GPT everywhere. People

are using different tools to build their own things. Is this the AI boom or is it

own things. Is this the AI boom or is it like 10% of what we're going to see?

>> Maybe 5%.

>> 5%.

>> Yeah. Obviously, last couple years people have been talking about it a lot and one of the things we should get you and we'll figure out how to get to you, but like I actually made an AI Christmas record.

>> Um, you know, kind of AI music I'd want to see around Christmas and it's just beginning to scratch what these kind of possibilities are. Cuz by the way, I'm

possibilities are. Cuz by the way, I'm not qualified to make a record. Um, you

know, I have none of the skills, but with AI, you can do that. And so what I think people are undertracking is they're seeing of course um the general discussion of codecs and cloud code and

and other things and they're not realizing how that spreads out to every portion of of kind of human work and creativity that it isn't just oh we all

have a software agent as our co-pilot doing stuff for us. Yes,

that'll be true, too. But that the coding capabilities are like generalized reasoning capabilities that then enable a bunch of things. They enable you to say, well, you know what I've always wanted for for someone working with me

as a travel agent, as someone who really understood, you know, my love of particular kinds of archaeology.

Could you then be the travel agent that figured out like where and what and d and could possibly book things and all like all of that is literally just

beginning but is all line of sight. So I

think we're literally like for example we're a small in number of years by which we realize something I've been saying for the last couple which is there aren't individual contributing

workers anymore that we all deploy with a set of AIs like for example um almost for sure when we're doing this conversation let's just project next year since we did last year

>> we'll have you like your tablet will have an AI agent that's going oh ask him about this or when he said this do this or you know like like that kind of thing

will be amongst what we're doing. That's

the reason why I'm like not 10% maybe 5% maybe 2%.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> And you said in our last interview that we have around 2 years to adapt.

>> So as someone nontechnical I want to start adapting.

>> So what do I do if I'm a creator, a salesperson, a marketer? What are the steps that I can take today? Well, table

stakes is if you're not already interacting with, you know, call it the easy AI agents, the chat bots today and in a substantive way. And I don't just mean that as a

way. And I don't just mean that as a substantive way of like, so for example, you're you like you're thinking, okay, how do I um take my podcast and and kind of media to the next level? What are the

things I should consider? What are the the different kinds of ideas for it? Or

I'm a travel I'm traveling to this fun place. What should I do there? All this

place. What should I do there? All this

stuff. But like for example some what I mean by basics is in prompting you don't just go oh I type in seven words and see what I get. One of

the things I think is key now is being voice build which is speak to it. We

speak a lot faster and it's actually much much better if you just throw out lots of things. But even in speaking to it like one of the things that I'll do when I'm interacting with with you know

various AI agents is I'll say really interested in what are the prospects of fusion technology which companies doing really interesting things have new things come from labs you d

>> now write me the right prompt to do all the research for that.

>> Yeah >> even when I do voicemail because then it comes back with a two-page prompt and I run the two-page prompt and then I get something very interesting. So that's

what I mean that's I describe as basic.

That's >> okay. This is basic.

>> okay. This is basic.

>> Yeah, that's basic.

>> Talk to me about advanced but without coding.

>> Like one of the things that as you begin to get experience with this, you realize that these chatbot agents are very good at ascribing roles.

So, uh you might have an idea, but you say, "Hey, I'm I have an interest in let's just continue the fusion example.

I have an interest in fusion for climate change and fusion for energy and what it's going to mean for AI." Let's ask that question. Get an answer like okay

that question. Get an answer like okay what would a technologist say? What

would a venture investor say? What would

a government policy person say? What

would a nuclear safety person say? And

then you might even ask the the AI are there other roles that I haven't thought of and then you ask it to adopt each role in giving you an answer because then you begin to realize that there's a

whole lens of things and this thinking about AI as like a consmate like you know kind of role taker is useful because even in very simple things like you say well I I'd really like to argue

this like when I'm writing I do this and I say well argue against me like what what's what's the thing that that that's a simple role like be the contrarian, be the the naysayer to what I'm saying. By

the way, you can also get the and what are things I'm missing to argue for what I want to be.

>> That's a great exercise by the way.

>> Yes. So, so you do all that, but then it also gets interesting when you kind of go all right like for example, you say, well, hey, I'm I'm thinking about how do I what's the next generation of AI uh

impacting social media, internet media?

Like even the question you're asking, it's a great question to go ask AI. is

like no you have to ask it in a way that you're prompting it to do web research that this is this is maybe a little bit more on the slightly more advanced question is what people don't realize is they think this is a deeply

knowledgeable AI which it is they don't realize it's training run finished 18 months ago so it's actually 18 months out of date in the use of AI tools right

so when you're asking a question like well which AI tools you actually have to ask it a research question you have to go look at pull a whole bunch of information. It's like GBD 5.2 thinking

information. It's like GBD 5.2 thinking mode.

>> Yeah.

>> Pull in information and give me a report on it. Because if you're relying on just

on it. Because if you're relying on just the information on the model, its view of something that we're being 18 months out of date is a problem.

>> Is a problem.

>> Can you evaluate my setup? For example,

I have a notion where we have the whole operations. I have 35 people on my team.

operations. I have 35 people on my team.

We log every episode. We have a transcript and then we have cloud projects for every uh social media that we're running which has access to performance data scripts.

>> Uh it acts like a strategist. So we gave it instructions so it knows what our goals are.

>> Do you think it's easy, medium or advanced? What else?

advanced? What else?

>> I would say that's probably medium.

>> Medium. Okay. So part of it is you've got uh cloud agents uh with assigned roles on a you know kind of constant like you know an active part of the process not oneoff.

>> Yeah.

>> So that takes you from easy to medium.

Okay. Right. Kind of doing that. Now on

advanced you probably want to say well what are the additional skills and what pulls from other sorts of data might be useful >> like should we have one that's kind of

going for example >> talk to all the agents or all the the projects and say is there through lines like what can we derive from what's working what's not working are there through lives that can give us good

ideas for things we should be doing in the next month or two >> right like kind of doing almost like the meta of it would be one thing and meta both internal data but also external data

>> like how other podcasters >> and you might go this one did this really interesting thing with and I'm just choosing a random one crypto punks and we could do something with that

right like that kind of thing like >> yeah gathering ideas from other fields for you >> right and that that would be the because because again part of it is think about the AI agents as intelligence that

scales processes information with basically the price of electricity right like you price of comput but price of computing electricity. Well, that means

computing electricity. Well, that means it's like in in the vectors where you can give it instructions, >> you don't want it to spend infinitely.

You could obviously easily spend $200,000 on AI processing that's you not useful. That is not useful. But in

useful. That is not useful. But in

anything where it's kind of bounded into a vector that's useful, you go, "Well, actually, in fact, spending even call it $10,000 doing a bunch of compute could

suddenly give you 15 different useful things."

>> And that's easily valuable.

>> Yeah. So, for someone who's listening who has a 9-5 job doing 80k and they're like, "Okay, how do I use it to double my income this year?" What would you say?

>> Oh, that's interesting. Um

doubling income is an interesting question. Um

question. Um partially because maybe the simplest one is everyone who is running businesses that they're investing in

knows that they have a massive need for AI transformation and AI talent. So part

of it is to start demonstrating your engagement and knowledge with AI in ways that you're easily findable because you know whether it's through LinkedIn or through social media platforms or else

>> like literally people are like we're looking for this cuz we know we need this transformation and so >> I think a whole the the lucrative jobs won't just be the super high price like

oh we need AI researchers but like we're literally now I think this year is when really begin to see more of the applications.

So like how do I run my business better?

How do I do um like my analysis of my supply chain or my financial analysis or my risk analysis or my marketing or my sales? How do I do any of that stuff

sales? How do I do any of that stuff better? And they're going to start

better? And they're going to start looking at it. And sure, they'll go to some other internal people, but everyone's going to start going, well, I've been doing this job and adopting the jumping to the totally new thing is

hard for me. So part of it is like okay start jumping to the new thing.

>> Love it. So basically the business idea or the double income idea you get proficient in tools in some area and go help other >> and demonstrate it. Yes. And demonstrate

it >> because I feel like we're also in a bubble right where in Silicon Valley everyone's using AI and then you travel abroad and be like what?

>> Yes.

>> What what GPT?

>> Well yes with really interesting asterises. So, like for example, I think

asterises. So, like for example, I think it was about 18 months ago, I was talking to a friend of mine who was traveling in Morocco and the taxi driver who didn't speak English was making their whole business work because they

were just using chat GBT as a translator.

>> So, literally it was just like >> people are figuring it out.

>> Yes, exactly.

>> It's just a beginner stage. But then you need to become medium and advanced.

>> We've been talking with Reed about AI changing how we work, how we build, how we create. And I want to show you a tool

we create. And I want to show you a tool that we've actually been using on Silicon Valley Girl for a while. This is

Hicksfield. You might have seen some of my post with uh my dream guests for this podcast and my dream blog in New York City. Those videos and images were all

City. Those videos and images were all generated in Hicksfield. It is a platform where you can get all the top AI models in one place. Nana Banana,

Seance, Cling, Google Vio, Sora. You

don't need 10 subscriptions. Everything

is right there. Hickfield just dropped Cinema Studio 2.0 and this is the next level because it's not just an AI video.

It's closer to actual film making. You

start with a text prompt. You pick your camera, your lens, your focal length like you're setting up a real shoot except you're doing it in your browser.

You generate an image and then you can step inside it as a 3D scene. Move

around, find the exact angle you want, and then you turn it into a video.

camera movements, pan, dolly, drone shot. You just select it and it happens.

shot. You just select it and it happens.

No timelines, no key frames, nothing.

You can build full sequences up to six shots, each up to 12 seconds in 1080p.

You add characters, give them emotions, write dialogue, and handles lip sync automatically. Characters stay

automatically. Characters stay consistent across every single shot. And

here's what got me. There are genre presets: action, horror, comedy, suspense. And they don't just change how

suspense. And they don't just change how it looks. They change how it feels. A

it looks. They change how it feels. A

horror sequence builds tension slowly.

Action speeds everything up. Comedy

holds the reaction shots longer for timing. The genre actually shapes the

timing. The genre actually shapes the pacing of the whole scene. This is

probably the closest thing to real AI film making that exists right now. Not

just clips, but actual scenes with characters and story. If you want to try it, I'll leave the link to Cinema Studio 20 in the description. All right, let's get back to our interview with Reed.

Talk to me as an entrepreneur. So, I

built a company and I've been building this business since 2011, helping people learn languages, study abroad.

>> But from what I'm seeing right now with these systems getting more and more advanced, Codeex can now do the taste thing, right, that we thought is irreplaceable.

And then we've seen Claude releasing this 200line code that brought the B2B market down. We lost $300 billion of

market down. We lost $300 billion of market value. Is this the end of B2B

market value. Is this the end of B2B software or like >> what's going on? what it was markets tend to over time are very good measurement devices but like can do

crazy short-term things short-term long short-term low short-term high they can do both >> right because they they kind of don't know how to absorb something and part of what the transformation of the kind of

cult SAS B2B software market is it the way it used to run is >> I would build something you know kind of valuable like Salesforce and in building Salesforce um it would

take you Ultimately, I'd add in so many features cuz one feature for company one, one feature company two, three features for company three. But having

them all there that for someone who wanted to compete with me, they'd have to spend a billion dollars just to create the product to start the sales thing against me. And even then, the

problem is that sales is a very hard thing because what Salesforce is, we'll be here forever. Do you want to switch your mission critical system to the new provider >> who sure they spent a billion dollars building the product but are they going

to be still be here or not? So it's very hard to do and that's the economics that created SAS is a valuable business category because then Salesforce cuz it was hard to get competition in could

charge I don't know what their actual sales for margin let's call it 40%. You

know margins and that could allow them to kind of reinvest in their business and everything else. Now with AI coding, it's like well actually in fact like I'm company 4 and they had these two features that I want. I didn't want all of them

>> and there was another feature that wasn't in there or another two features weren't even in there that I really wanted. Now it might just be more

wanted. Now it might just be more economical for me to to kind of maintain my own system in AI because generating and maintaining and evolving the software is is so much cheaper.

>> It is.

>> Right. One counterpoint because everybody's like, "Oh, software engineers are getting out of jobs." No,

they're not because they're going to be employed everywhere. Like the grocery

employed everywhere. Like the grocery store is going to be employing software engineers and these things like >> like you still need to think about this like you say I want to have a CRM system. You can't go to an AI and go

system. You can't go to an AI and go give me a CRM system.

>> What? No. What about two years?

>> Well, maybe eventually but like for example part of I have confidence that for a number of years and maybe it's a shorter than I would believe the human plus the AI will be much better,

>> right? like when you're understanding

>> right? like when you're understanding like for example you know Sarah or Bob is walking around they're looking at how we use the CRM system and like oh but this would be a good idea the area doesn't really have that ability to walk

around and do it it'll have ability to do internet research >> and bring that in which is really useful as per earlier comments >> but um that's the reason why I think the combo will be useful and that's reason I

think software engineers will have jobs for a while because it's a way of thinking about now how a software engineer operates is already starting to change. Like as opposed to the oh I'm

change. Like as opposed to the oh I'm sitting down and typing code. It's like

well actually in fact I've got 20 coding agents that I'm managing through voice going generate this, generate this, cross-check this, do that. Like I'm more

of a conductor than I am a violin player or a piano player, right? Is kind of the as thing. And that is changing. People

as thing. And that is changing. People

be surprised at how much room there is in the business world for conductors.

>> Okay. But uh so I've heard this a lot on social media and I feel like I'm kind of starting to believe it that we only have a few years >> to make money as small business

entrepreneurs because then it's going to be taken away by large models. Do you

agree with that?

>> Well, I do think that we're going to see a sea of content creation by AI.

>> Yeah.

And um you know people say well but people don't want that they want only human and it's like well there will be a persistent demand for human that's good by the way just like there's elevator

music you know music in elevators and so like there's lots of things out there that people are not like well I'm really looking to make sure it's only a person who made that it's just does it fit my particular need and circumstance is it

easily available is it free cheap not expensive etc etc so there's going to be a flood of stuff I do think that what that means for small business is but it

may be a feature of small business versus call it large businesses which is small businesses usually tend to be able to be more adaptive cuz our large businesses are almost more on call it

the industrial model the tailor models like we we tuned our efficiency and we work really and we own these distribution channels and we did a like you know I love Disney so I'm not picking on Disney but like Disney as

doing it small business adopt AI I think will have a lot of interesting unique shots because of the platform transition and so it'll be an advantage to them versus the large companies. The small

businesses don't adopt AI. I think it's going to be very hard.

>> What would be your advice then for entrepreneurs who are building a smaller AI business AI based business and are afraid that two weeks somebody releases like with SAT prep cuz I'm in test prep.

>> Yes, >> J and I released SAT prep. I'm like okay my thing is TOEFL. When is TOEFL coming to Gemini?

>> Probably very soon, but you know, sorry to say um did I just register your specific question, but my guess is it's very soon.

>> So what what do I do?

>> What do people like me do?

>> Well, I think what you do is you refactor to go, look, I realize I'm going to have to rebase my entire business on AI and AI is a dynamic changing platform. So in as much as it's

changing platform. So in as much as it's not toolled on AI, I got to retool. Now

part of it is that okay TOEFL will be available on AI platforms for entrepreneurial or kind of call it people who want to pull it together themselves just as they were pulling together through Google searches

whatever else for free so that so what's the things I can do that cause people to engage with me >> yeah what's my value ad right >> okay build a personal brand we're doing this yeah >> is there anything else >> well that's definitely one but it's also

like you could imagine it's like well actually in fact most of these you know like Gemini chatbt Claude, etc. will be solo experiences for a number of years. We're going to be

so focused on solo experiences. Well,

maybe there's ways we can do group experiences and the group experiences really work. And it doesn't mean that,

really work. And it doesn't mean that, you know, you can't inject, you know, chat GBT into a group experience and have it, you know, be useful, but maybe like it's like what are the ways that we use this trajectory and then we are

adding in something else because it's not going to be like for example, you say, well, but it could do that itself or someone who says I want to do it myself. Sure. But people don't want to

myself. Sure. But people don't want to do everything themselves. Yeah. One,

they don't have the ideas. Two, they

don't have the time. I think AI prompting is only going to slowly like at human speeds grow as an like I even talked to people who are pretty expert

and they go, "Oh, wait a minute. I was

voice build, but I wasn't doing it. Tell

me the write the prompt for me."

>> Yeah.

>> Off it.

>> Yeah.

>> Oh, yeah.

>> It takes it to the next level because the problem's like this.

>> Yes. Right. That kind of thing.

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So, are there any industries that you think are more? So from what you're saying like groups experience everything I feel like offline is going to get way bigger just want to stay off our devices and do things

>> any other markets >> well offline for sure. Um I also think like I said we are social animals but that's the reason why the groups and not

just you know being one of the earliest social network people LinkedIn etc. Um, but I think that will matter. Even as

these AI systems get a lot of capability, there still will be uncertainties and trust. And part of the uncertainties and trust is the incentive

of who of the entity that's offering it versus others. And there's ways that we

versus others. And there's ways that we and it kind of gets back to the personal personal brand, but >> the set of things that kind of get to

like how is that trust established and maintained? Um, we're both familiar from

maintained? Um, we're both familiar from our Silicon Valley context. You know,

there's obviously a whole bunch of people say everything that's done with bits is going to be completely done with AI and that's it.

I'd be very surprised if that were true.

M >> like that would be what I think is going to be massively transformed. So anything

that's being done with bits in a particular way today will be very different in 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, 24 months, etc. And you have to adapt to it, adapt to it and adopt it.

But I tend to think there's still like for like oh well I shouldn't bother writing science fiction anymore. It's

like it's not clear to me. Like I think writing science fiction could still work. But if your process of writing

work. But if your process of writing science fiction is I disappear for three years into a cubicle, you know, kind of typing on my

it's going to work.

>> Yeah. Okay. Do you think AI is the last human-driven revolution and all of the next revolutions will be AI >> uh created?

I think it's call it probability 60 to 70% that the um future inventions over the next call it 50 to 100 years

who knows after about that will be human plus AI created um it doesn't mean that there won't like every human doing an invention might not be actually in fact using AI to do it. Um, I have some

actually, you know, kind of unfortunately some things I can't talk about because they're confidential, but like they will be revealed in the next month is around like physicists working with AI to do stuff. And it's not it's

not oh my god, we discovered what dark matter is, but solving physics problems, but it's the human plus AI together. And

I think >> 60 70%.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Then I think there is of like inventions and then I think there's probably going to be call it another 25%

30% depending on where it is exactly that is actually in fact primarily AIdriven right over time in part because

we'll begin to kind of get zones of oh that's a much better a problem for the AI to solve and there might be some human checking in >> but it won't even be that depth of being a conductor. It would be more like

a conductor. It would be more like cross-checking the hey you know or does this make sense or could I spend $10 million doing the compute to analyze fusion containment in the following way

and you're like well $10 million is a lot of money you know if it's in today's dollars you let's cross check it and then I think there will be still 5% that's still the human eureka like without AI

>> okay only 5% for >> yes well with unassisted unassisted >> unassisted unassisted okay so sounds good sounds positive Okay, my last question. It is February 2026. If you

question. It is February 2026. If you

could give one piece of advice to someone watching now, uh what is one thing they should do before February 2027 to not get left behind?

>> Well, the very central thing a little bit like what echoes what we were talking about before is even most people who say, "Oh yeah, I'm using AI are not using it seriously

enough, right?" which is like I in

enough, right?" which is like I in everything that I do I think about how would I use I don't always do it because you don't always have to and certainly

not now but how would I use AI to help me do that or to to make that happen and it ranges everything from I'm planning a

vacation in Rome to I am thinking about writing a piece or what's the way that I would analyze what's going on with Malta in the whole

range. I think, okay, if I were going to

range. I think, okay, if I were going to try to use AI to really help with that, what what might I do? And and having that kind of always be a question. And

it look, it could even be the I'm going to have a difficult conversation with my mother. Okay, think about how AI could

mother. Okay, think about how AI could help with that. Like just get in the reflex. Think of it as kind of doing

reflex. Think of it as kind of doing like just the like simple training like >> before everything you do just think about how you could deploy AI to >> and you might go no I'm not going to do

this one that's fine because you limited time and all the rest but like be thinking about that because that is a reflex because literally my belief is today everything you do AI can be

helpful doesn't mean it's the answer.

So, for example, I still wouldn't go, here's the money I'm investing in AI, just have an AI do it. I think that would be a way to lose money >> today, right?

>> I'm still doing it myself. Yeah.

>> But I also, by the way, think about like what new capabilities the AI is bringing to my ability to invest, including an AI.

>> Absolutely love it. Thank you so much.

And thank you from everyone who's posting on LinkedIn. I feel like 2025 was the year of LinkedIn when we all saw tremendous growth and so many great deals. So, thank you so much for

deals. So, thank you so much for creating it.

>> My pleasure.