Reid Hoffman, Partner at Greylock and co-founder LinkedIn, speaks during the WSJ Tech Live conference hosted by the Wall Street Journal at the Montage Laguna Beach in Laguna Beach, California, on October 21, 2024.
Two of the main members of the PayPal mafia are sparring again — this time over artificial intelligence.
Billionaire tech investor and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman on Monday called Anthropic "one of the good guys" after the AI startup was criticized last week by David Sacks, the venture capitalist serving as President Donald Trump's AI and crypto czar.
"Anthropic, along with some others (incl Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI) are trying to deploy AI the right way, thoughtfully, safely, and enormously beneficial for society," Hoffman wrote on X. "That's why I am intensely rooting for their success."
Hoffman has served on Microsoft's board since 2017, shortly after selling LinkedIn to the software giant. Microsoft is a key OpenAI investor and partner. Hoffman was also an early investor in OpenAI, Anthropic's larger rival, and remains a shareholder. He revealed on Monday that Greylock, where he's a partner, has invested in Anthropic.
Greylock and Anthropic didn't respond to requests for comment.
In a series of posts, Hoffman said he tries to avoid commenting directly about companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, but that "in all industries, especially in AI, it's important to back the good guys."