♪ >> you are watching bloomberg tv. are close for president's day come up a let's take a look at how european stocks are doing. we are five hours into the european trading day and you can see green across the board. the ftse 100 up 2.2%. the dax in germany up 2.5%. the ftse in italy up 3.8%. risk on inmuch europe could look at the stoxx

600 and this is heading for its biggest today game since 2011. of as much as 6% over two days. it is up three point 2% on the moment destiny .2% on the day at the moment. they are still the worst performance this year. just what? they are the best performance of the day along with carmakers. what is driving this risk sentiment is after a rout. saw onns we stall o friday in the stoxx 600 came after the lowest level since 2013. analysts are pretty bullish on europe's equity marked as they see a rebound of 23% from friday's close on average speed and of the year. a lot of that will be down for more stimulus from the ecb. we have mario draghi speaking in an hours time. he will be speaking before european parliament lawmakers 3:00 p.m. brussels time. the euro down 7/10 of a percent against the dollar ahead of that

speech. this will be the trade to watch what he is speaking. investors are looking for clues inthe next policy move march. this will really be a test of his power today to move markets and see whether he can move this euro. draghi and his colleagues have been grappling with a stronger euro. it is the second-best performer against the dollar this year after the yen, up 3% against the dollar this year, but weaker at the moment. we have seen risk appetite in the stock market. another bit of evidence is that money is moving out of gold, the state haven that investors have been buying so far this year with all the market turmoil. best performing commodity on the bloomberg come on the index this year, but it's down to .3% today, set for its first back-to-back loss in a month. and platinum also following suit, falling today. that is your "bloomberg markets" check.

i will be back in 30 minutes for another bloomberg check. stick with bloomberg as we will bring you mario draghi life as he speaks to the european parliament at 2:00 p.m. european time. "good fortunes" is up next. ♪ zach: what drives me every day to help others be successful is family and friends. supporting those things.

making those people proud who have had a big influence in your life. narrator: the hottest ticket in new york isn't to the mets or the yankees. it is an invitation to an exclusive club in chelsea where once a year, some of the brightest and most successful young professionals in the city meet for a good cause. this lucrative event is the brainchild of a 30-year-old investor, and he believes that partying hard can redefine philanthropy in america's financial capital. >> you're in an organization that must operate with the heart of a charity and the mind of a business. that's zach. zach: my name is zach coopersmith. i am from chevy chase, maryland. i am a partner in a small private equity firm. we invest in lower middle market distribution. i enjoy business, i enjoy negotiations, i enjoy the hunt and the thrill of the chase of success.

♪ zach: so i worked at lehman for a year and a half right out of school. i was 22 when i was there, and my responsibilities, i would like to look back and think i had these grandiose responsibilities. but it starts out getting coffee and keeping track of spreadsheets. they were very good at giving responsibility quickly to young people. you were thrown in the fire pretty quickly working to build , models and to track performance of businesses, and then very quickly given your own book and p&l responsibility, where you are responsible for investment decisions and trading decisions. i was going to california for the weekend to go to an ohio state football game at the rose bowl, and i remember landing back from my california trip sunday night, and flipped over to my bloomberg account, and it was just red, all caps, red, all

caps. breaking news, lehman filing for bankruptcy, chapter 11 protection, next, next. oh, my god, how did this happen? how did this happen? i went up to my desk and the trading floor was full of people. people were taking stuff out of their desks and putting it into boxes. people were smoking cigarettes and drinking liquor. there were pizza boxes were everywhere. it was quite a scene to be sitting on the fourth floor of the lehman brothers and watch everything around you kind of collapse. it was through no action of myself, anyone on my floor, really anyone in my building, where the main reasons that lehman collapsed. that was eye-opening for me. ♪ zach: when i was there, was i happy at lehman? i was happy at times, but i was not happy making a career working at lehman.

it was frustrating to be investing in businesses without being able to help impact those businesses. we would own $10 million of bank debt of general motors, but i had no impact on general motors. i much more cared about what was happening with the actual business. i won't call it an epiphany, but just being frustrated by the lack of impact and change we could have on our investments is what started me down this path to form leading ridge where we really do have a tangible impact and the ability to affect change at our portfolio companies. for me, starting leading ridge was about regaining control of my own destiny. whether i am successful or not, at least i will have control over that future success or future failure and i was ok with that.

♪ david: i am david hughes, president and ceo of rugby architectural building products. we are a nationwide distributor of specialty building materials. we operate 28 locations across the united states. we are selling like gangbusters now coul. we are selling a lot of markets now. you bring it here, and we have u.s. distribution for that. our relationship with zach coopersmith and leading ridge capital started in august 2011 when zach invested in rugby. through growth capital provided by leading ridge partners and affiliated investors, we have grown the business to approximately $300 million in sales from $76 million in sales. having partners like leading ridge and zach -- it has been a special relationship. there has been good chemistry. i think we have been able to grow faster and handle more

opportunities as a result of my partnership with him. >> hey, buddy. >> what is going on, man? >> just keeping dry. zach: what we do is help solve problems for small businesses. we have been able to provide a solution for a number of family businesses, a number of small businesses that help the employees keep their jobs, the customers keep their suppliers, suppliers keep their distributors, and all told successfully grow those businesses and continue to provide more opportunities. david: zach is wise beyond his years. he is not much older than my kids, so i think about that, how young he is. he is obviously a very bright guy. he provides a good perspective because he challenges business decisions. he is always asking questions. zach: what i love about what i do -- you really get to know the people you are dealing with and get to make it more than just about a spreadsheet, more than just about a business.

it really becomes about their family, their wife, their kids, their aspirations, their goals for life after business. david: so there is still some cleanup to be done here. zach: as far as when the time is right to be able to help others, waiting until the time might be perfect, until you are 100% comfortable and you know you never need to earn another penny in your life, then it is too late. when you have the opportunity to write a check or have the opportunity to volunteer and make a difference, take advantage of that opportunity. there is never a perfect time. ♪

♪ narrator: investors zach coopersmith has helped transform

the investment seen in new york city. it has taken him from wall street to the companies that made up the nuts and bolts of the american economy. zach: how are you? good to meet you. narrator: business has been in his blood from an early age. warren: my name is warren coopersmith, i am 69 years old, i am zach coopersmith's dad. our family business was mainly selling snacks, it morphed into selling into video stores when they started coming about, experimented with other things, tobacco, fancy foods, some failures, some successes. zach: my earliest memories is working in the warehouse of the candy distribution company. i got paid a quarter an hour. we grew up, summers and weekends in the family business, and always sort of talking about business. everything i know, i learned from watching my dad. watching him wake up at 4:00 in the morning, loading trucks for 25 years. he has been through a lot. the house was mortgaged twice for the business to be successful. all kinds of sacrifices to be made but he was always at my , baseball game, my soccer game. he was able to find that balance. i have tried to emulate that. work is important, being successful is important, but if you miss the rest of life, it's all for nothing.

warren: zach's early business ventures were numerous. he started selling rocks that he would take out of a person's garden and try to sell it back to him. he was age 2 or 3. he had some success there, but he had no investments, so i guess that was an incredibly successful venture. that moved on to selling paper products in the neighborhood, he and since i stuck them in my warehouse he put samples , together. it actually grew a little bit, he actually had an assistant in the neighborhood, put these little packs together, and he would run around the neighborhood. he did all right with that type of thing. zach: if you want to talk about the first llc that was formed, i then that would be my moon bounce rental company that i started off with a friend in my sophomore year of high school. we were 15, i guess, when we

started it could we borrow the money from our parents, bought a moon bounce formed a business, , insurance, the whole bit. six months in, we had no business, we sat down and said ok, what can we change? then we opened up the yellow pages and we just made phone calls, and that day we booked 14 jobs, which was a month and a half or two months of work in like a six-hour period. we were running around the basement. i remember it like yesterday. james was my partner and we were high-fiving and we were going absolutely crazy. i went to college a few years later, and we were able to sell the business for more than we had invested into it at the end. even though it was on quite a modest scale, it was starting a business from scratch, and we ended up selling it three years later for a profit. as far as an early influence with philanthropy in my life, it would be my parents. again, i think from a very early age, it was instilled in me that

when you are blessed in a way that allows you to help others, it is your duty to help others, whether in a small way, a big way, or somewhere in between, it is critical to do so. the first memory i have of philanthropy is a small county fair in virginia where we sold popcorn and cotton candy to raise money for a group of special needs children in the area. we woke up at 4:30 in the morning, went to the fairgrounds, set up shop, sold cotton candy and popcorn at a dollar apiece, and we raised a lot of money to me at the time, , to donate the money. we did it for a number of years. from the ages of 4, 5, or 6, early on, though, small dollars may be in the scheme of global philanthropy, the lessons learned, the values on philanthropy and the importance of philanthropy were certainly instilled in an early age. warren: you either within you have the instinct and the desire

to give and share, or you do not. i think there should be a desire within that if your lifestyle changes and you are able to, and then you want to give back. zach: really no different than when we go look for a business, i was looking for a charity to partner with and attach myself to, and make a wish was a very well known organization, a very fiscally responsible organization where a lot of the dollars donated go toward granting wishes, and most importantly, i love the mission, what they did, why they existed. the impact they had on families and on children. ♪ pat: i am pat clemency, i am ceo

president and ceo of make-a-wish in new york. the mission of make-a-wish is to grant wishes for children with life-threatening medical conditions, to enrich the human experience with hope and joy. we understand the importance today of the wish experience. it is part of patient care. we also understand its impact, not just in that moment, but over the lifetime of a child, of a family, of everyone in the community who has been touched by that wish. zach: you become a much better fundraiser and much better philanthropist the much more personally involved with the mission and impacting children and their families. ♪ zach: toast to wishes started six years ago. i was sitting around with a few friends and just saying hey, we go out in the city and we have

fun, wouldn't it be nice to go and try to have fun but do some good while being together? we felt like there was a void in the market, so to speak, of really fun charity events that supported great causes. just like a business finds a void in the market and fills it, that is kind of what we did here by starting toast to wishes. we created a fun event that people love to come to, supporting a charity that people love to support. we minimize the cost and we maximize the chance of success. we set it up with a venue that was going to close otherwise, so there was no opportunity cost for them to be open to all the liquor and food was donated. all the music was donated. all the auction items were donated. so the only cost was having the staff there that night. how badly could it go? what was make-a-wish's reaction when i first approached them with this event?

biggest the reaction was been there, done that, not going to work. you need to be persistent. if you believe in something strong enough, you continue to push until you get what you want. for me, it was worth trying to help make-a-wish, worth trying to help kids, worth trying to grant wishes. do not stop me from doing that. we are going to be successful. we are going to raise a lot of money. let us go raise the money. ♪

narrator: investor zach coopersmith was on the board of the make-a-wish foundation when he spotted a gap in the new york philanthropy scene. the result is an annual party, attended by some of the youngest and richest leading lives. zach: first of all, welcome, thank you so much for coming. we set out with a goal of $10,000, and hopefully have 150 people show up, and the first year we raised $45,000 and sold the venue out with 220 people. we were beyond excited. it was a cool spot, open bar, packed food, small auction, and everybody had a great time. it snowballed into a really neat, annual event. we are now in our sixth year. we have raised $1.5 million. we have 600, 700 people every year. we continue to sell out. we are looking for a bigger venue that is still a lot of fun. people come back because they

love make-a-wish, they love making a difference, and they love having fun while doing it. that is what it does is it gives people an avenue through which to donate money to a great cause, and for that, they are appreciative. and by the way, they get to have a whole lot of fun while making that difference. and the average wish costs, it moves around a little bit, but it is about $8,000 or so. you take the $1.6 million, $1.7 million that we have raised, that is a lot of wishes. pat: that very first year when zach and his friends raised $40,000, that in itself was pretty remarkable for a first-time event. the second year when it raised $175,000, i think everyone really sat up and took notice. but i think what was so remarkable about it is that already you could see important this event was, not only for raising money but for building the next generation of

leadership for make-a-wish. and really crating a long-term commitment for the cause. zach: i have been involved with a number of wishes. one that came to mind that really was a life-changing experience, and i do not say that lightly, was a child from salt lake city. his name was jacob. becky: my name is becky shelton. my son is jacob shelton, and he is a make-a-wish child. and that's how we know zach. ♪ becky: we lived in a rural area of town, so doctors are pretty appointments were 2.5 hours either way. so, i got very good at getting the kids breakfast, putting them on the bus, putting jake and i in the car, driving to the doctor's office, getting back. getting the kids off the bus.

that was our daily routine. zach: jacob was battling illnesses has whole life, and his wish was to go to "sesame street" to meet elmo, and he came from salt lake city with his mom and his mom's friend to meet elmo, and the make-a-wish teamed me up with the family, with becky and jacob and her family to go to 2n sesame street cou. becky: when jacob saw elmo, it was like his blankie, his soft thing, his place to go, so whenever he was sick, whenever we had to have a procedure done in the hospital, our go to thing was an elmo video. that would take his mind off what was going on for a little while. elmo was his happy place. elmo was where he felt safe and he felt good. zach: he got in the limousine, put the wheelchair in the back, got him in the limousine, he -- becky actually pulled off his shirt and stuck a feeding tube right in his stomach.

it was something i had not seen before, something i had not been exposed to, and wow, things just got really real, really fast. it was really a special time. it was not go meet elmo, shake his hand, and call it a day. we were on set for six hours. jacob got to meet the camera man. he got to do everything on set. he got to go backstage. he got to meet the puppets. he was interacting with the muppets like they were people. >> you are in my heart forever now, jacob. right here, feel my heart. becky: his face was as bright and his smile was as big as i had ever seen, and those eyes could light up the world. he just loved it. he was jacob -- not a care in world.

he was jacob right there with his buddy. zach: you realize what they have been through as a family, and it makes you realize the trivial issues that we deal with on the trading floor at barclays, goldman, or i deal with with our companies day to day. just those trivial issues, but they are not meaningless, but look at what this family is dealing with, what they are seeking to overcome, and you look at those hurdles, and it makes your hurdles easier to jump over. becky: there are moments that now that jacob has passed away i have. and those memories will always be with me. for that, i will forever be grateful.

♪ zach: putting on an event is very similar to planning a business. we talk about leadership. an event and end up six years later with an event that looks like we have today? it's about leadership. it's having a group of people who are passionate about what they do, passion about the cause, the vision, the mission, and rally people around them, and that is what we have done. it's no different than as ceo of one of our businesses or what we try to instill in the management of our businesses. it's the same thing here. let's get a group of people, get them excited, get more people around us, get them excited, and continue to grow. that is what we have done with the event, that is what we have done with the new leadership council, and it's really similar to what our successful businesses have done within their companies as well. pat: i think the new breed of philanthropists is really asking questions about not only wanting to participate and give time or give money, but really looking at the opportunity to see the results of their work. so, if anything, i think they

are bringing a sensibility about understanding the impact of where they make their donation of time and money. zach: my personal approach of philanthropy is really to generate as many smiles as you can for the dollars to which you are donating and raising. and i did not want to wait until later in life to be able to make a difference. at the end of the day, we are here for the mission of make-a-wish, what make-a-wish does, the impact it has on children with life-threatening illnesses. if neighborhood by neighborhood, area by area, i think our generation really is making a bigger difference than maybe past generations have at this age, and we will continue to make even a bigger impact. ♪

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i've never felt so alive. make your business phone mobile with voice mobility. comcast business. built for business. >> hours into the european trading session, we are up more than 3% at the moment. o dayooking at the tw performance because the stoxx 600 is heading for you today -- heading for the

biggest two day game. what is driving this optimism? it is coming after a pretty big route print and actually hit its lowest level since 2000 and 13 on friday. -- 2013 on friday. they are projecting a rebound of 23% through the end of the year. saying a lot that will be driven because of more stimulus, or expectations of more stimulus from the european central bank. the euro-dollar, , before down six cents mario draghi's speech is just a half hours time. he will be speaking before the markets. investors will be looking for any clues on the next policy

move in march. it will be a test of the power of his word to move this trade. but it is not just euro-dollar, it is also euro versus sterling, and that a is weakening today as well. six month volatility on your sterling is near its highest since 2011 that is not just because of mario draghi, it is also because of concerns of a grexit. have thealthough we euro weakening, stocks moving appetite, and goals losing its shine. money moving away from the safe haven assets. down 2% at the moment. investors have been moving to the safe haven. not the case of the last few days. that is your bloomberg markets check.

i will be back in about 30 minutes with another market check. you mario bringing draghi life as he speaks to the european parliament. studio 1.0 is next. ♪ ♪

emily: using people should be almost from the start. no honest shinzo abe -- how honest should they be? when he is interviewing people, before the start of the company make he asks what jobs they want.

-- emily: he's been called the startup whisperer of silicon valley. reid hoffman is the co-founder and executive chairman of linkedin and an investor in some of the most successful companies of all time, including facebook. yet, the man with one of the most impressive resumes in silicon valley wasn't always on track to be an entrepreneur. a student of philosophy, hoffman at one point pursued a career in academia. but he took his first job out of school at apple, and then later joined the now legendary paypal mafia. now a partner at greylock, hoffman sits on seven boards. he is the author of "the startup of you" and now a new book, "the alliance." our guest today on "studio 1.0" is reid hoffman. reid, thank you so much for joining us. reid: my pleasure. emily: you have no shortage of jobs. why did you write this book? reid: the key thing is, in many circumstances, employers and employees are lying to each other. the notion is the modern career is in fact changing. there are options for shifting companies and how you evolve and even career tracks that are changing. the question is how do you get that investment in the future and entrepreneurial relationship between the employer and the employees?

and the short answer is an alliance. an alliance based on tours of duty that are three or five years long. that transforms your career, it makes you employable, and transforms the company. emily: you said people should be honest from the start. how honest should they be? reid: something i learned from one of our executives at linkdin -- when he's interviewing people, before they start the company, he asked them what job they want after linkedin. that's actually part of his interview. emily: what do you want to do next after you do this? reid: that's a level of transparency. we are committed to your career. we want your stint here to be transformative to what your career is. emily: what if you hear something you do not like? reid: well, then you ask why. that's a very good thing to learn. if you learn something and i like, wait a minute, that may mean they are lying. over this three to five years, it may not work. emily: the comparison to the military -- do people really feel that way about their companies? that patriotic? as a soldier is to his country? reid: we want people to understand -- look, it's not daily employment. and it is an investment in something real and something real and it should be transformative. a bold term would be a right way for people to think about it. emily: what other companies are doing this well? you have your hand in so many of them. reid: google, for example. when i talk to eric schmidt. we normally think about these as three to five year stints, or -- where the person actually learns a job, achieves something significant, proves himself, and then goes to do something else. ebay focuses a lot on how do we bring the relationship of all the folks who have graduated from ebay and paypal together. and then have an external network tied in. even places like ge in terms of what they used to do and still do for executive rotation. how do you then groom all kinds

of stars to be an executive at this huge industrial conglomerate? emily: what does silicon valley get that other industries don't yet? reid: silicon valley understands that r&d is not just holing up in a lab and we inventing something, and then, tada, there it is. it's actually being present and active in what is going on and the entire network is around innovation. people hold up steve jobs and and say he was sitting in the back room. but he was talking to people constantly. what can be done here, i mentioned learning about this, i wanted learn about this. i want to learn with these google folks are doing. let me talk to them. silicon valley is a combination of intense competition and intense cooperation. emily: linkedin is an interesting paradox. on one hand, it makes it easy for people to find opportunities, and makes it easy for companies to lose good people. reid: when you have a more open and transparent ecosystem, that means that the quality opportunities, the high culture companies will benefit, because essentially, the talent will flow to them. but overall, it creates massive benefits both for individuals and for the companies that have interesting opportunities. and that is a good thing. emily: you have a statement of alliance at the end of a book that people can use as a guide. in the end, though, isn't it just a promise, and a promise can be broken? reid: promises can be broken, just like any other relationships. you know, sometimes a friendship ends, it happens.

but if you lived your whole life like friendships may end, so i am not going to have any friends, that would be terrible. [laughter] emily: so many companies have a founding myth that is sort of boiled down into legend. what is the myth of reid hoffman, and what is the reality? reid: myth, reality -- who can tell the difference? the myth is kind of a manifest destiny march towards entrepreneurship and talent. a march towards technology. the reality is how do we come towards people, how to we help that? oh look, software. oh look, entrepreneurship. right? those are as ways of discovering that path. that is the myth and reality. emily: let's take a break. we'll be right back. ♪

♪ emily: let's talk about how you got there.

you grew up in berkeley. reid: yup. emily: what did your parents do? reid: both parents are lawyers. and that led to -- because the legal profession is the one that people most often leave. when you look at the actuarial charts of people transitioning. when people asked me when i was 12 when i wanted to be, the answer was not a lawyer. [laughter] emily: what was the answer? reid: i didn't actually know. what happened is i kind of got the independence bug a little early. i was going to a school that was on the berkeley/oakland border called a college preparatory school. a friend of mine said i'm going to the putney school in vermont. and i said, wait, i could go and be independent. i could be exploring my own life. i applied for and got into the putney school without either of my parents knowing. emily: you applied to a boarding school without your parents knowing? reid: yes. it was part of the independent streak that i got early. emily: what kid were you in high school? reid: no, actually, i was a pretty strange individualist.

[laughter] reid: for example, i usually would have one or two friends in most of the different cliques. i had a friend or two out of the jocks, a friend or two in the artists. a friend or two -- it was all very individual. i did have much younger -- i was part of a fantasy role-playing group. emily: what is that? reid: dungeons & dragons. right? and actually, the way i got into dungeons & dragons was my dad, when i was nine, hired a babysitter for me who introduced me to dungeons & dragons. and i was like, oh, creating new worlds, and thinking how stories come together. it's kind of like an interactive novel. emily: you went to stanford. you majored in symbolic systems. marissa mayer also majored in symbolic systems. what is that? reid: symbolic systems -- it is

a unique major to stanford. the simple explanation is science and artificial intelligence. most people do not think it is that simple. it is a step deeper. part of what is transforming the world is this notion of system assemblage. whether they are computer programs, mathematics and logic, models of how we think, technology. i think i was the eighth or ninth person to have that major. emily: so while you are at stanford, you met peter thiel. reid: yes. emily: tell me how you met. reid: so peter and i had both been told about each other by people we knew. i was told there was really right wing person, he was told i was this really left-wing. we both said, i've heard about you. we grabbed coffee, and i think we argued for eight hours. we were like, you can't believe that. we said that was fun, let's do that again. emily: you went to oxford. you studied philosophy. why? reid: i said, i think i will be an academic. because if i'm an academic, i can write about both of these interesting questions. i'm always fascinated about people, how we think, and how we

reason. how we communicate. what i realized was that the course of becoming an academic professor was to be a very narrow scholar. you essentially wanted to be an expert on the thing that only 10 to 20 people in the world probably knew about. and actually what i wanted to do was how do you help millions of people? within six months at oxford, i knew that in fact i wasn't going to be an academic. i was going to come back here. emily: that is when you decided to be an entrepreneur, essentially? reid: that is when i started to work on software. i started thinking of myself as an entrepreneur -- that kind of came later. emily: you took your first job at apple. reid: yes. emily: 1994, in the middle of the near death spiral. did you meet steve jobs? reid: no.

steve jobs was not there at the time. i was literally at apple at the -- we have no idea what we were doing. no good plan to adapt during the future. i went there because i loved apple products. i love the macintosh. i bought one of the earliest ones, i learned to program on the apple iie. emily: then you went on to start your own company. you started a social network before social networks, right? it was called social net. 1997? reid: social net had some of the right ideas. it had the idea of having a profile, the idea of discoverability. it had the idea of having some kind of social controls on how you would meet strangers. but it didn't have the

fundamental network idea. it didn't have the fundamental real identity idea. emily: you then went on to the paypal mafia. who called who? how did that happen? reid: i called peter, and peter said, we are going to actually probably going to sell paypal. we don't have a business model at the time. but it would be really useful for us, because you know all of this stuff, could you come help us organize the company and sell it? if i could be helpful, i would be happy to step in and do that. we did not sell it, we took it public and sold it to ebay after we took it public. and so what was supposed to be a six-month tour of duty turned into a three-year tour of duty. and -- well, the paypal story is long and fun. emily: and legend. when did it start being called the mafia? reid: you know, i don't really know. it might have been with the "fortune" article. i am always hesitant about the term. the mafia implies dark rooms, you know, extortionate practices -- these kinds of things.

it's clever, it gets repeated. it implies a dense, tight network, you know, where people are tight with each other. what i would call it is much less evocative. the paypal network is what i would call it. it probably started six to 12 months after the ebay acquisition. emily: linkedin, tesla, youtube, yelp, yammer, and spacex. all founded by members of the paypal mafia. what was special about all of you? what did you -- what did you have in common? reid: paypal collected a whole bunch of people that were young and intense, and entrepreneurial themselves. and then all of a sudden, it was bought by ebay. so all of these folks were like, okay, what do i do next? and so chad and steve do youtube. elon goes to do tesla and spacex, jeremy and russ do yelp, i do linkedin. and yet, because we had this intense experience together, we all have still a really tight network. we are calling each other going, i'm thinking about doing this, what do you think? emily: who do you call for what? reid: for example, for macroeconomic, financial, bold models, i will call peter. the intersection of kind of interesting business models or business technology, big data, i will call max levchin. for a willingness to just think super big, with risk as not a variable, elon. [laughter] reid: right? emily: what do they call you for? reid: laughs.

no. [laughter] emily: i have heard you are quite funny. reid: occasionally. but i don't know. other people are funnier. a view of the valley. like, okay, i'm thinking about x, who are the right people to talk to about x? emily: you were instrumental in the sale of ebay for $1.5 million, 2002. looking back, was it the right decision? i mean, ebay, paypal have had an interesting year. some other members of the paypal mafia think they are better apart. reid: it was absolutely the right decision at the time. and we made it collaboratively. part of the reason was to really get to the right kind of level of mass of the payments transaction system, it required a much closer connection with ebay. now that it has gotten to a certain level, is it better inside or outside? and one could make good arguments both ways. the argument with is for example, actually, in fact, there is still a lot of density of value between ebay and paypal. on the other hand, the argument against it, maybe paypal should be like a bank. ebay is not a bank holding company. the natural evolution is to head there in some direction. that's also possible with the right management team. emily: it's time for a quick break, we will be right back. ♪

♪ emily: after you sold paypal, you could've retired a few times over, probably. some other members of the paypal mafia bought ferraris. you bought an acura, which is still a nice car. but you did not say, i am going to lean back. reid: a funny story on the car. i was taking about buying an audi s8. it's a really nice car. what happened is i got pitched by a friend of mine. i thought would i rather buy the s8 or would i rather invest in the startup? what is the cheapest nice car i could buy? because i would rather spend my money investing in these companies that are transforming the world. that is how i ended up buying an acura. emily: then you decided to buy something new. reid: i was thinking about traveling the world for year. in 2002, silicon valley concluded the internet was over. i said, no, it's just beginning.

and the current companies are great. google, yahoo!, amazon. but they are only going to be some of the great companies created. as opposed to a year, i took two weeks in australia, came back, said what is my best idea, and said linkedin is still a valid idea. the market opportunity is still right for it. i should start that. i started investing in companies like facebook and flickr and a number of others. i was like, let's just go all in on this next generation of internet. emily: i know that the early years were hard. tell me about that. reid: i don't know how many of our viewers will remember this, but friendster was all the rage. emily: i remember friendster. reid: i would say, this is what linkedin is. they said you are like friendster, but for business. i was like, well, that's not the way i would describe it. i cannot tell you the number of times that i've had conversations with people who are smart and close to me say it will not work and i said, i think it will. so. emily: when did you come closest to giving up? reid: oh, never. emily: never? reid: nope.

emily: it took five years to turn a profit and you made hard some really decisions along the way, including stepping down as ceo and becoming executive chairman. reid: the question really wasn't like, oh, was it a difficult thing for ego, stepping down as ceo, but what gives us the best possible chance to realize something? and part of what i had come to realize is that i'm passionate about scale impact in the world. i am passionate about solving product and business problems. i am passionate about entrepreneurship and innovation. but i'm not passionate about running an organization. i don't wake up going, how do i run my exec staff better? and how do i -- when we are onboarding the next 100 people, how do we do that? i know it's important, but it's not the problem that i wake up thinking about.

as it came together with jeff, jeff said i can help you interim, running the stuff that you feel challenged about. we were like, oh, jeff is enough of a product guy, he can actually do this job. emily: tell me a little bit about your partnership with jeff. reid: jeff and i get along well. for example he knows that when it comes down to things like building organizational cultures, or thinking about how do you really make up an executive staff work really well together, or how you identify a plus talent through the whole organization. so we partner on these things together. and we solve these problems together. emily: you split your time between linkedin and greylock. how do you split your time? is it like 50/50? can you break it down? reid: it's 70-70. [laughter] reid: generally speaking, i work seven days a week. i have an office next to jeff's. the short answer is all. emily: seven days a week? reid: yes. emily: you have had so many wins already. why do you do all of this? reid: thea way i think about it like how do you have a life that you are proud about having lived it? you think that what you did in the world was worth it.

emily: you think about steve jobs at apple and mark zuckerberg at facebook and larry and sergei at google. is there a magic than the founder brings that would be lost if you weren't here? reid: i think so. every founder is useful, because of that vision, commitment, that willingness to take bold risks. emily: you joined greylock as a partner in 2009, and you have a unique investment philosophy. the best companies to invest in are actually the companies you do not agree on. reid: most people think the way that a venture partnership works is everyone votes on a deal and when everyone says yes, this is a good deal, then that is a deal that happens. the best deals are when everyone not when everyone votes, yes, i would do the deal, too. the really bold deals that transform industries are the ones that initially seem a little crazy, a little out there, like linkdin and it's early days, and yet end up growing to something that is great. emily: didn't you disagree on facebook and airbnb? reid: yes. a partner said this is going to be the death of greylock. with airbnb, a variety of the partners, including david, said, you know, people are really going to rent out the rooms?

isn't that going to be weird? we had an argument. he said, fine. i wouldn't do the deal, but you can. obviously, everything turned out ok. emily: you have been called the startup whisperer of silicon valley. what does whispering to start ups involve? [laughter] reid: well, i'm not quite sure. i guess what people who use that term -- i don't identify that way myself -- by being an entrepreneur myself, by being able to be a participant in a lot of their early stage companies -- it's not that i know everything. i know some things that are useful. emily: we live in an age of four increasingly powerful platforms. apple, google, facebook, and amazon. do you worry at all that any one of them could become too powerful? reid: yes, although not necessarily specifically each one of them, but more as a general system. but naturally when you have aggregation of platforms, you have to worry about leaving room for entrepreneurs, leaving room for innovation. i worry about that on a general basis. not on those specific four companies.

i talked to all of the ceos of those companies. they are all like, look, we are trying to build great products and do great things. emily: richard branson has a private island. steve ballmer is buying a sports team. mark benioff gives a lot away. what do you do? with all of the money you have made? reid: most of it is still in linkedin stock. i am building the world with linkedin. i serve on a number of different nonprofit boards. like endeavor and do something. i try to finance projects that i think are interesting. emily: are we ever going to see you start something else? another company? reid: probably not. you know, with the founders, i work pretty closely with them, but there is a long way to go with linkedin. i would say that is unlikely. although you will see me partnering with a bunch of great young entrepreneurs, and trying to help figure out how to build something big. emily: reid hoffman, thank you for joining us. it has been a pleasure to have

you on the show. reid: thank you. ♪

♪ >> good afternoon. you are watching bloomberg television. u.s. markets are closed for presidents' day, but let's take a look at how european markets are doing right now. if we look across the board you can see it is green pretty much across the board. up 2.2%.100 the index in germany of 3%. very much risk on here in europe. looking at the stoxx 600, it is heading for its biggest two day gain in 2011. we are of