To cap off season one of The General Podcast, we asked long-time friends and collaborators— Reid Hoffman and John Lilly—to sit down for a wide-ranging conversation about networks, company-building, investing, AI, and the relationships that shape a life’s work.

Reid is the co-founder of LinkedIn, a longtime partner at Greylock, and one of the most influential builders and investors in technology. He recently co-founded Manas AI, an AI company focused on drug development (and GP portfolio company). John was CEO of Mozilla, where he helped scale Firefox into one of the most important public-interest technology projects of the modern web, and later became a partner at Greylock.

They start with the fortuitous story of how they first met—through a one-line introduction from a mutual friend that turned into breakfast at Hobee’s, and then into years of a never-ending conversation. At the time, Reid was coming out of PayPal and beginning to think about what would become LinkedIn. John was building Reactivity and later trying to understand what Mozilla could become. Their early breakfasts became a ritual. They’d each bring a list of ideas, and each leave with a longer one. They’d trade names in their respective networks through stacks of physical business cards (LinkedIn didn’t exist yet!). At the time, John was one of the first people Reid told about LinkedIn, and also one of the first to tell him he wasn’t sure it would work. Those conversations became the foundation for a decades-long friendship and working relationship.

From there, they get into the deeper question of what makes Silicon Valley run. They agree that it’s not capital or even ambition, but the constant movement of people, trust, references and introductions across companies. Reid and John then get into how founders should build networks intentionally and how to think about the people whose “team” you want to be on over the course of your entire career.

They also talk about AI—whether it will make entrepreneurship more lonely, whether one-person trillion-dollar companies are realistic, and why Reid believes the future is less about all-AI companies and more about every person bringing a team of AI agents with them.

In this conversation, you’ll also learn:

Why great relationships often start with “who else should I talk to?”
How to build a network intentionally without making it feel transactional
Reid’s favorite reference-checking tactics
Why every CEO should spend time with extraordinary people outside their company
How to use board seats as a way to expand your judgment
How AI agents may reshape work without replacing human relationships
What Reid + John have each learned from founders like Bret Taylor and Dylan Field
How to think about building “the house you want to live in” as a founder
Why “AI as a friend” misses something essential about friendship

Where to find Reid Hoffman:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reidhoffman/
X: @reidhoffman
Website: https://www.reidhoffman.org/
Manas AI: https://www.manas.ai/

Where to find John Lilly:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnlilly/
X: @johnolilly
Greylock: https://greylock.com/team/john-lilly/

Where to find The General Partnership:

Website: thegp.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-general-partnership/
X: @thegp