LinkedIn cofounder, legendary investor, and host of the award-winning Masters of Scale podcast reveals the secret to starting and scaling massively valuable companies.
What entrepreneur or founder doesn’t aspire to build the next Amazon, Facebook, or Airbnb? Yet those who actually manage to do so are exceedingly rare. So what separates the startups that get disrupted and disappear from the ones who grow to become global giants?
The secret is blitzscaling: a set of techniques for scaling up at a dizzying pace that blows competitors out of the water. The objective of Blitzscaling is not to go from zero to one, but from one to one billion –as quickly as possible.
When growing at a breakneck pace, getting to next level requires very different strategies from those that got you to where you are today. In a book inspired by their popular class at Stanford Business School, Hoffman and Yeh reveal how to navigate the necessary shifts and weather the unique challenges that arise at each stage of a company’s life cycle, such as: how to design business models for igniting and sustaining relentless growth; strategies for hiring and managing; how the role of the founder and company culture must evolve as the business matures, and more.
Whether your business has ten employees or ten thousand, Blitzscaling is the essential playbook for winning in a world where speed is the only competitive advantage that matters.
About the Author
REID HOFFMAN is an entrepreneur and investor. In 1998, Reid Hoffman was a founding Board member and executive vice president of PayPal. In 2003, he co-founded LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional networking service. He was an angel investor in Facebook and Zynga, and in 2009, he became a partner at the venture capital firm Greylock Partners. He currently serves on the boards of Airbnb, Apollo Fusion, Aurora, Coda, Convoy, Entrepreneur First, Gixo, Microsoft, Nauto, and Xapo, as well as not-for-profits Kiva, Endeavor, CZI Biohub and Do Something. He hosts Masters of Scale, an original podcast series. He is also the co-author of two New York Times best-selling books: The Start-Up of You and The Alliance. He is an Aspen Institute Crown Fellow, a Marshall Scholar at Oxford, and a graduate of Stanford University.
CHRIS YEH is an entrepreneur, writer, and mentor. He holds two degrees from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. He is co-author of the New York Times bestseller The Alliance with Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha.
Praise For…
"The case studies you’re about to explore and the tools you’re about to gain have never been more relevant. This is an ideal moment to be reading this book" - From the Foreword by Bill Gates
“The book the start-up world has been waiting for. I can’t think of any other that so perfectly captures the specific challenges – and opportunities – that a company faces at every stage of growth. This book shares some of the key secrets for building mission-oriented, global businesses at speed. -Brian Chesky, Cofounder and CEO, AirBnb
“Blitzscaling shows how companies can build value for customers and shareholders in the digital age. A compelling inside view of how the new economy is being built and is transforming global business.” –Sheryl Sandberg, New York Times bestselling author of Lean In and Option B
“The secret of Silicon Valley is that it keeps updating the playbook. Each new success – from Google to Facebook to Airbnb and Uber – develops new techniques for world-transforming products. Reid Hoffman paints the picture, with key case studies, of what it really takes to build a market-leading company. If you want to learn how to manage growth amid the controlled chaos that has become the new normal for startups and legacy businesses alike, read this book.” -Eric Schmidt, Technical Advisor and former CEO, Alphabet “This is the best book I’ve ever read on how to grow a company rapidly—and when that’s even worth trying in the first place. With a rare combination of fresh insights, vivid cases, and actionable advice, it’s a must-read for entrepreneurs and executives.” ~ Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Originals, Give and Take, and Option B with Sheryl Sandberg
