Reid Hoffman steps down from Microsoft board to focus on AI drug discovery startup

Reid Hoffman is stepping down from Microsoft’s board after a decade, the company announced. Hoffman joined the board following Microsoft’s $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn in 2016. He was on the board during Microsoft’s initial $1 billion investment in OpenAI in 2019 and during an acqui-hire deal worth $650 million involving his previous AI startup Inflection AI. Hoffman said he is shifting focus to “founder mode” with his latest venture, Manus, an AI drug discovery company that raised over $50 million in seed rounds last year. Hoffman serves as co-founder and chairman, while Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee is CEO. He cited progress on “Move 37” AI for chemistry and cancer research as the reason for the change.