Reid Hoffman Exits Microsoft Board to Lead AI Drug Discovery Startup Manus

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman is departing Microsoft’s board of directors after nearly ten years, Benzinga reported Thursday. He is stepping away to devote full attention to Manus, his AI-native biopharmaceutical startup targeting cancer drug discovery.

A Decade on the Microsoft Board

Hoffman joined the Microsoft board in 2016. That appointment followed the company’s $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn, the professional networking platform he co-founded in 2002. His time on the board coincided with several consequential moves by the Redmond company. Microsoft completed a landmark $1 billion investment in OpenAI in 2019. The company also executed a $650 million acqui-hire of Inflection AI, an earlier Hoffman-backed venture.

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The OpenAI Chapter and Shifting Priorities

Hoffman’s relationship with OpenAI predates his Microsoft connection. He resigned from OpenAI’s board in 2023, citing conflicts between that role and his broader investment portfolio at Greylock Partners. His personal holdings in OpenAI-dependent startups added further tension to the position. That departure signalled an entrepreneur increasingly pulled toward active company-building over governance duties.

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“Founder Mode” and the Manus Mission

On a recent episode of his “Possible” podcast alongside Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Hoffman explained his reasoning plainly. Progress at Manus had accelerated to a point where it demanded his direct leadership, he said. “We’re seeing such progress with Manus. I need to get back to founder mode,” Hoffman told Nadella, per Benzinga. Manus is co-founded and chaired by Hoffman and backed by General Catalyst. Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, a Pulitzer Prize-winning oncologist and author of “The Emperor of All Maladies,” serves as chief executive. Hoffman has described the firm’s approach as harnessing what he calls “Move 37” AI. The concept refers to machine intelligence that surpasses human intuition in chemistry, in the way AlphaGo famously outplayed world champion Go players. Applied to oncology, Hoffman believes this class of AI can meaningfully accelerate the discovery of new cancer therapies. Microsoft shares were down roughly 1% on the day, trading near $412.50, though no direct connection to the board change was indicated.

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