Show Notes
For 20 years, Silicon Valley's operating creed was 'move fast and break things'; the wreckage was the price of inventing the future. Today, we live amid that wreckage: institutions built for the last century, trust in freefall, and political leaders bent on annihilation of norms. Burning it all down might feel like the right choice. But revolutions have a habit of costing far more than they promise, and the true price can linger for decades.
In this episode, Reid Hoffman argues for the harder job: renovation, not revolution. The LinkedIn founder and early Facebook board member says governments can't keep pace with AI, and that for now, the companies building it may be the only institutions responsive enough to steer it. Fixing the rest will be slow, frustrating, and partial. Hoffman's bet is that we can still be renovators, and that we had better hurry.
Mentioned in this Episode:
Books
Superagency: What Could Possibly Go Right with Our AI Future — Reid Hoffman and Greg Beato (Book, 2025)
Essays
Faith in the Possible — Reid Hoffman (Substack essay, 2026)
Where to find Reid Hoffman:
Website: https://www.reidhoffman.org
Substack: https://reidhoffman.substack.com
Greylock: https://greylock.com/team/reid-hoffman/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reidhoffman
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Credits
Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch
Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos
Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney
Theme Music: Marcus Bagala
Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson
Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.
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