reid hoffman is the executive chairman of linkedin and an investor in some of the most successful companies of all time, including facebook. he 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 joined the paypal mafia. now a partner at greylock, hoffman sits on seven boards. he is the author a new book, "the alliance."

reid hoffman is the executive chairman of linkedin and an investor in some of the most successful companiesincluding facebook. he 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 joined the paypal mafia. now a partner at greylock, hoffman sits on seven boards. he is the author a new book, "the alliance."

reid hoffman is the executive chairman of linkedin and an investor in some of the most successful companiesl time, including facebook. he 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 joined the paypal mafia. now a partner at greylock, hoffman sits on seven boards. he is the author a new book, "the alliance." thank you for joining us.

i do think jack will loom large over the entire vision of the company, the same way that reid hoffman does here as chairman of linkedin. jeff does a phenomenal job, but these founders, their personality and presence remains, even if they do not run the day-to-day operation. >> always great insight, happy friday. ory, enjoy new york. up next, the battle to build tesla's giga factory. where it could be built and how it could have a huge impact on tesla's business. >> this is "bloomberg west." i am jon erlichman. tesla has broken ground at one of its possible locations for its gigafactory, but there are other sites still competing. for more on the story, we go to cory johnson and alix steel in new york. >> the news of the gigafactory discussed in the conference call yesterday, reporting in the second quarter. they started out with a weird sentence. they said they had broken ground at a location that could be the site of a factory. breaking ground at a place that is not yet determined to be the site of a factory? do they have the capacity to build enough cars, can they get battery capacit

reid hoffman, peter thiel, even google. by 2009, the company had 200 million monthly active users. but some problems started to emerge. only 2.5% of users actually paid zynga anything, and as an ipo looms the accounting at the zynga was interesting. zynga made a bunch of legal accounting changes, effectively taking revenues from the future and pulling them forward. without these changes, zynga would have lost money every single quarter. but with the changes, profits appeared, and so did an ipo at a $7 billion valuation. a few months later, the company had a secondary offering and the ceo sold $200 million of shares. the stock began falling, and in late 2012 sales fell, never to recover. layoffs began. kleiner perkins took another seat on the board and pincus was outed as ceo, replaced by xbox executive don mattrick. he got a $1 million salary, a $5 million signing bonus and more than 10 million restricted stock units from zynga. they cut users by 2013. by the end of one year of his tenure, the same problems exist. and a draw in more users? can they launched another game, -- can the

that jack will loom large over the entire strategy and vision of the country, the same way that reid hoffmanas chairman of linkedin. a wonderful job, but these founders, their personality, their presence remains even if they don't run the day-to-day operation. >> happy friday. always a pleasure. >> thank you. >> our thanks to both cory and dan rosensweig. up next, the battle to build tesla's factory. new details on where it may be built and how it could have a huge impact on tesla's business. >> this is "bloomberg west." i am jon erlichman. tesla motors has broken ground in nevada on a site for the highly anticipated giga- factory, but there are other states competing for the factory where it the carmaker plans to produce lithium-ion batterie i will turn over to cory johnson and alix steel. >> the news of the factory, discussed in the conference call yesterday, started up with a really weird sentence. tesla said they had "broken ground in a location that could be the site of a factory." breaking ground if it is not determined to be a site is a strange thing. the discussion is, do they have t

reid hoffman and i asked him a little bit about what keeps him up at night when it comes to linkedin.hinks about in the future. >> i worry about are we under delivering against the opportunity. we have this ability to have a professional identity and change the way they work. are we doing well enough against that very learn -- long-term opportunity. there are things that need to be done over years to get there. are we being bold enough? >> he want to say are we taking bold enough steps and making big enough decisions and taking risks. how are you try to do that on a daily basis? linkedin is that capitalizing on the opportunities that you think is out there? >> i think that resonates with me and the executive team. we are continuously taking bold bets and exploring new avenues to fulfill the promise of what linkedin means to over 300 million members. we are looking at new ways of inventing. if you think about as professionals, we get busy and are too focused on what we are doing. are we doing enough? are we presenting ourselves in the best possible way and putting the best foot forward

venture investors swarmed to the startup, reid hoffman, ter teal, yuri millman, even google. by the end of 2009, the company had 207 million monthly active users, 28% of them on the site every single day. yet some problems started to emerge, for example, only 2.5% of the users pay zynga anything. and as i.p.o. loomed, the accounting got interesting. zynga made a bunch of legal accounting changes, effectively taking revenues from the future and pulling them forward, without the exchanges, zynga would have lost money every single quarter but with the changes, profits appeared and so did an i.p.o. at a $7 billion valuation. a few months later with the valuation of $10 billion, the company had a secondary offering, c.e.o. pincus sold $200 million worth of shares. but the stock began falling and in late 2012, sales began falling never to recover. layoffs began inside, they reported 46 employees an fell to fewer than 2000 employees. perkins took a seat on the board and pincus was out at c.e.o. and bumped out the chairman and was replaced by xbox executive mattrick in july of 2013 a