October 30th: Reid Hoffman & Matt Cohler on The Social Web & Starting Up during Downturns.

Our speakers for October are Reid Hoffman & Matt Cohler.  Reid is Chairman and President, Products at LinkedIn, and formerly EVP at PayPal.  Matt is a General Partner at Benchmark Capital, and formerly VP Product at Facebook.   Reid & Matt will speak about social networks and platforms, and the emerging social web.  Given the current market conditions, we’ve also asked them to speak about building startups in tough times, noting LinkedIn and Facebook as two examples of great companies started during the previous 2001-2004 “dotcom depression”.

Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn

Reid Hoffman is founder and Chairman at LinkedIn, and was the founding CEO for its first four years before moving to his current role as President, Products in February 2007.  While CEO, Reid built the company to over 9 million members and profitability.  He now drives product and business strategy for LinkedIn.

Prior to LinkedIn, Reid was Executive Vice President of PayPal, where he was in charge of business development, corporate development, international & government relations, and banking/payments infrastructure.  While at PayPal, Reid was instrumental to the acquisition by eBay and was responsible for partnerships with Intuit, Visa, MasterCard and Wells Fargo.  Prior to PayPal, Reid held management roles at both Fujitsu and Apple.   Reid currently serves on the Board of Directors for SixApart and Mozilla Corporation.   He graduated with distinction from Stanford University with a BS in Symbolic Systems and from Oxford University with a Master’s degree in philosophy.

Matt Cohler, Benchmark Capital

Matt Cohler is a General Partner with Benchmark Capital.  He has extensive experience working with consumer Internet companies, and has held senior management roles at Facebook and LinkedIn.  Matt joined Facebook in early 2005 and recently served as Facebook’s VP Product Management, where he helped drive strategy, organizational growth and product direction.  Matt is now a special advisor to Facebook.

Previously Matt was VP and General Manager at LinkedIn, where he was a member of the company’s founding team. Before LinkedIn, he was a consultant in McKinsey in Silicon Valley and also worked in Beijing for AsiaInfo.  Matt holds a BA from Yale University and graduated with honors and distinction.