It's good to have friends and no few songs had this theme. LinkedIn Corp. co-founder Reid Hoffman, confesses that it has never been something more truthful than this and that is due to the fact that most of his fortune comes from good relationships. His way to success is due to a college friendship who led him to PayPal that was sold in 2002 for $1.5 billion to eBay Inc. He continued to growth his fortune and success throughout investments in other Internet startups he discovered through friends and former colleagues. Using his PayPal experience Hoffman started an online business-networking service that helps professionals like him realize the value of their contacts from the past and present - Linkedln. In it is useful to people who know each other elsewhere more easily meet others who might help their careers. In spite of the fact that it is not so fun like Facebook or other social network, the site doubled its user's number getting to 18 million people that now have profiles on it. Although in 2008 has projected revenue of $75 million to $100 million, Hoffman as LinkedIn's chairman and largest shareholder five years after starting the company said the Mountain View-based company will probably file for an initial public bid if he will not change his mind in the meantime and sell it to one of the buyers that already presented interest in the matter. Former LinkedIn executive Keith Rabois suggests for Hoffman to buy an IPO in order to create a bigger buzz about the service if he wants to reach Facebook with 60 million users and a market value of $ 15 billion. Still, the secret is that Hoffman has a stake in Facebook and he introduced some of its features to Linkedln, allowing LinkedIn users to display pictures next to their personal profiles and to open up the site for outsiders to post mini-applications, known as widgets, designed to help people with common connections to share information. Hoffman rarely misses opportunities and the greatest regret he has is that he hasn't taken the chance to invest in Youtube and lost a lot of money when Google purchase it for $1.76 billion in 2006. Nevertheless, his good eye in building relationships got him YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, who worked with Hoffman at PayPal. There is also a saying that everyone in Silicon Valley is connected to Reid Hoffman. As a conclusion, by using the famous title of a show: It's good to be Reid Hoffman!
By Claudia Sonea; edited by Dana Kotorova
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