Reid Hoffman leaves Microsoft board to run AI drug startup

Reid Hoffman, the venture capitalist and LinkedIn cofounder, will step down from the Microsoft board of directors after nearly a decade, the company announced this week. Hoffman will not seek reelection at the company's 2026 annual shareholder meeting, freeing him to focus full-time on his artificial intelligence drug discovery startup, Manas AI.

Hoffman joined the Microsoft board in 2017, following the tech giant's $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn the previous year. His tenure spanned a pivotal period in Microsoft's history, including its initial $1 billion investment in OpenAI in 2019 and its deepening partnership with the ChatGPT maker. Microsoft stated that Hoffman's departure is not due to any disagreement with company executives on matters of policy or operations.

The executive said his decision is driven by a desire to return to "founder mode" and dedicate his attention to Manas AI, a company he co-founded with oncologist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee. The startup, which launched in early 2025, applies artificial intelligence to accelerate drug discovery, with an initial focus on cancers including breast cancer, prostate cancer, and lymphoma....