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Auren Hoffman
American entrepreneur and investor
Auren Raphael Hoffman, born in 1974, is an American entrepreneur, angel investor, and author, currently serving as the CEO and Chief Historian at SafeGraph, a company specializing in location data derived from mobile devices. SafeGraph provides detailed information about physical places and the movements of people, aiming to support businesses in creating location-based applications and analytics tools.1
Education and Early Career
Hoffman graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in Industrial Engineering in 1996. During his college years, he founded Kyber Systems, which he sold shortly after its inception. He has since founded and led several companies, including Bridgepath Inc. and LiveRamp, the latter of which became a significant player in the data services industry before being acquired by Acxiom in 2014.12
SafeGraph and Controversies
Hoffman co-founded SafeGraph in 2016, and under his leadership, the company has faced scrutiny for its data collection practices, particularly regarding privacy concerns. In 2021, SafeGraph was banned from the Google Play Store due to policy violations related to data usage. Despite these challenges, Hoffman has emphasized the importance of ethical data sourcing and transparency in the company's operations.15
Personal Life
Hoffman is married to Hallie Alexandra Mitchell, an assistant U.S. Attorney. They married in 2011 and have been involved in various philanthropic and community initiatives.1
Contributions and Thought Leadership
In addition to his role at SafeGraph, Hoffman is known for his insights on data businesses and entrepreneurship, frequently speaking at industry events and contributing to discussions on the future of data and technology.345
Highlights
the best thing you can do in a complex organization is work on making it simpler. the easiest way to do that is to reduce the number of white-collar employees. fewer full-time employees means decisions can be made much faster.
anything wrote or recurring can be done with APIs, software, or contractors (that you can treat as APIs).
any massive expertise can be rented — you can always rent the world-class expert but you usually cannot hire her. you only need employees for the most strategic parts of the business. most businesses can cut between 50-80% of the people making $80k or more.
if data is the new oil, then unstructured data is shale.
because unstructured data is becoming easier and easier to work with
