Reid Hoffman says 15 people using AI can compete with 150 who aren't
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- LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman says AI is transforming what small teams can accomplish.
- Startups should treat AI as an experiment rather than trying to roll out new software.
- Hoffman shared an example of his team experimenting with translation pipelines for his podcast.
The era of the tiny team is upon us.
Just ask LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, who made the point in a recent LinkedIn post and in an episode of the "Possible" podcast that aired on Wednesday.
"15 people with AI can compete with 150 without it," Hoffman wrote on LinkedIn. "AI fundamentally changes what small teams can accomplish."
"Small teams have clearer shared context, something large organizations can't replicate. AI amplifies this because you can build systems that capture and surface patterns across that shared context," he added.
Hoffman said that instead of trying to find existing AI products to solve a specific issue, AI-native startups ask, "What would the perfect solution look like for my exact situation?"
"Then they build it, even if crude," he said.
Speaking with AI engineer Parth Patil on the podcast, Hoffman pointed to an example in which Patil used a combination of Codex and Claude Code to create a French translator for the podcast.
The two then experimented with the AI agent to localize the French translation.
Codex even gave the option to enable translation pipelines for 68 other languages, Patil said.
"This is like, an example of our workflow, where something that was previously a massive stretch — maybe too expensive to do — then becomes something easy to start prototyping," Hoffman said on the podcast.
Hoffman's experience using AI for translations echoes comments Steven Bartlett, the host of "The Diary of a CEO" podcast, made at the World Economic Forum in January.
Bartlett said on a panel at Davos that, while it was initially an "expensive experiment," using AI to translate his podcast into other languages ended up becoming a game changer for his business.
"There's nothing more important than what we've done for our business than translations. Period," Bartlett said.
In recent months, multiple business and tech leaders have signaled that they are or will be replacing some human jobs with AI.
On its most recent earnings call, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg said AI is enabling individual people to do the work of an entire team.