Reid Hoffman to leave Microsoft board to focus on AI drug discovery startup Manas AI

Reid Hoffman, the venture capitalist and LinkedIn co-founder who has sat on Microsoft’s board since 2017, is walking away from one of the most influential seats in corporate America. His reason: he’d rather build an AI company that tries to cure cancer.

Hoffman announced he will not seek re-election to the Microsoft board at the company’s 2026 annual shareholder meeting. The move frees him to pour his attention into Manas AI, a startup he co-founded with oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee that uses artificial intelligence to accelerate drug discovery for aggressive cancers.

From board seat to founder mode

Leaving Microsoft’s board is not something people do casually. This is the company that bought Hoffman’s LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in cash back in 2016, a deal that cemented one of tech’s most lucrative relationships. Hoffman joined the board in March 2017, and for nearly a decade has had a front-row seat to Microsoft’s transformation into an AI powerhouse.

Manas AI launched in early 2025 with a specific mission: applying artificial intelligence to drug discovery, with an initial focus on breast cancer, prostate cancer, and lymphoma. The company raised approximately $24.6 million in an initial funding round in February 2025, and total capital has reportedly exceeded $50 million.

Hoffman’s co-founder, Siddhartha Mukherjee, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and practicing oncologist whose book “The Emperor of All Maladies” became one of the most widely read works on cancer biology in the past two decades.

A pattern of clearing the decks

This isn’t the first time Hoffman has stepped away from a prestigious board to manage conflicts and focus. In March 2023, he resigned from OpenAI’s board, citing the need to prevent conflicts of interest with his broader investments in AI companies. That move came as OpenAI was becoming the most talked-about company in technology and as Microsoft was deepening its multi-billion-dollar partnership with the ChatGPT maker.

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