Big Tech Made Peace with Trump. Reid Hoffman Didn’t.

Conversations with Coleman

The Free Press

Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.5 • 610 Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2025

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My guest today is entrepreneur and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. He’s now facing something most tech business people never imagine: being personally targeted by a sitting president’s Department of Justice. Reid and I talk through the rise of politically motivated prosecutions, the erosion of trust in institutions, and how social media and AI have accelerated our collective slide into suspicion. We get into deepfakes, vaccine skepticism, the inequality debate, and whether billionaires should exist at all. Reid also walks me through what it’s like to wait for an indictment he believes is purely retaliatory. This is a conversation about democratic guardrails, not partisan talking points—and about what happens when political power becomes personal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	What I've dedicated my life to is revenge.
0:04.0	A brand new drama based on the best-selling novel.
0:07.0	They think they're better than us.
0:08.0	Who do you think you are?
0:10.0	I'm going to prove to them that they're wrong.
0:11.0	She's punishing me.
0:13.0	You destroyed my family.
0:14.0	I will not rest until I've destroyed yours.
0:17.0	A woman of substance on Channel 4 starts tonight at 9.
0:20.0	Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman.
0:23.4	My guest today is Reid Hoffman.
0:26.1	Reed Hoffman is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, author, and podcaster,
0:31.2	best known as the co-founder of LinkedIn.
0:34.0	A former PayPal Mafia member and one of Silicon Valley's most active early investors,
0:39.0	he's a longtime partner at the venture firm Greylock, where he has backed companies like Airbnb and Joby Aviation.
0:46.3	Reed is also a billionaire donor to the Democratic Party, which has landed him in hot water with Donald Trump,
0:52.5	whose DOJ has signaled that they'd like to indict
0:55.1	Hoffman as they recently attempted to do with former FBI director Jim Comey. In this episode, we talk
1:01.6	about the rise of politically motivated prosecutions on both sides. We talk about why trust in
1:07.2	institutions and in media has declined so steeply, not just in America, but throughout Europe. We talk about declining trust in institutions and in media has declined so steeply, not just in America, but throughout
1:12.0	Europe. We talk about declining trust in vaccines and the medical system. We talk about whether
1:18.0	billionaires should even exist. We talk about whether our democratic institutions are successfully
	...

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