Reid Hoffman is an American internet entrepreneur best known as the co-founder of LinkedIn, a social network for professionals to connect with each other. He is also a venture capitalist and the author of two New York Times bestsellers. Today, he is very famous as a successful businessman and an innovative entrepreneur though just a few years ago he was struggling with his first start-up, a company named SocialNet that users could use to connect with friends. Even though he had to abandon the project within a couple of years, he learned a lot about the dynamics of business management from his early failures to emerge as one of the most successful internet entrepreneurs in the United States. He has been an innovative thinker and quick learner from a young age. He attended the Putney School where he also drove oxen and farmed maple syrup along with studying. A bright student, he won a Marshall Scholarship while studying at the Stanford University which enabled him to attend the Oxford University for his higher studies. Though initially he wanted to become a professor and public intellectual, eventually he changed his mind and decided to become an entrepreneur instead. After gaining some work experience at Apple Computers and PayPal, and experiencing a start-up failure, he found great success when he co-founded LinkedIn in December 2002 along with a few of his friends.