From TechCrunch:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/05/read-hoffman-tells-charlie-rose-every-individual-is-now-an-entrepreneur/

Reid Hoffman is an entrepreneur's entrepreneur. He worked at Paypal, founded LinkedIn, and invested in dozens more. Last night, he appeared on Charlie Rose (full interview embedded above, full transcript below), where he talks about the rise of social networking in general, and LinkedIn's success in particular (it is adding one million professionals every 17 days and is emerging as a "low cost provider of really good hiring services").

Yesterday, Hoffman wrote a post for us with some concrete suggestions for a Stimulus 2.0 plan led by startups. He hit some of the same themes on Charlie Rose. The best part of the hour-long interview, however is towards the end where Hoffman discusses the role that entrepreneurship can play in getting America out of its rut.

"I think entrepreneurship is really what has a chance of accelerating us through the recession, that LinkedIn kind of providing the tools for entrepreneurs will help with that, because obviously everyone’s worried about, you know, is this like the 1930s.

. . . And I think, you know, part of the benefit of a network is bringing together financiers, employees, customers, advisers, et cetera, and bringing all of us all together in a really powerful way. And I think that– I think that if you look at what’s going on in the Valley, people are still trying to figure out how, like OK, we have a problem, we have an economic recession. What kind of things can I build that will work now?"

What he is talking about is not just that everybody needs to go out and build a startup, but that if more people start thinking like entrepreneurs we’ll get out of this economic mess much faster than if everyone just has their hand out.