Microsoft’s Inflection Deal Spotlights Reid Hoffman’s Role

The AI startup gold rush has featured a recurring cast of characters from past seasons of Silicon Valley tech booms. Sam Altman! Vinod Khosla! Google! Microsoft! You already know ’em, you already love ’em. That fact not only has amused me as money poured in over the past year and a half, but has said something about how tech, money and innovation collide. Connections beget connections. Fortunes compound, at least most of the time.

Microsoft’s unusual acquisition-but-not-quite-acquisition on Tuesday of chatbot startup Inflection, co-founded by Reid Hoffman, fits this mold, too. Yes, that Reid Hoffman, of PayPal, LinkedIn and Greylock fame, and a Microsoft board member since 2017.