Auren Hoffman

Personal life

Hoffman is a son of Amalia Hoffman of Larchmont, New York, and Edward M. Hoffman of Montvale, New Jersey. Amalia Hoffman is an author and illustrator of children’s books. Edward M. Hoffman works in New York as a software engineer and software consultant to the financial industry. Hoffman graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in Industrial Engineering in 1996.

In 2011, Hoffman married an assistant U.S. Attorney, Hallie Alexandra Mitchell, who graduated from Princeton University, and received a Juris Doctor degree from Northwestern University School of Law.

Business

Hoffman founded Kyber Systems in his junior year at UC Berkeley, as a way to pay for school. Kyber was sold to Human Ingenuity in 1997. Hoffman founded Bridgepath Inc. in 1998, which was acquired by Bullhorn, Inc. in October 2002. In 2002 he sold the website GetRelevant to Lycos. He then became chair of the Stonebrick Group through 2006, which sponsored networking events in the San Francisco area such as the Silicon Forum. Hoffman's business style is sometimes referred to as a networker. Hoffman is a speaker at events in the technology industry.Stanford Law School CIS/SLATA Speaker Series: Auren Hoffman

• Predictive Analytics World 2010 Case Study: 1-800 Flowers, Leveraging Social Media Data to Manage Fraud Risk
• Future of Influence San Francisco 2009

In 2006 Hoffman cofounded Rapleaf and served as its CEO until 2012, when he left the company to run a Rapleaf spinoff called LiveRamp after Rapleaf was acquired by email marketing company TowerData. On May 14, 2014 Acxiom announced that it had acquired Liveramp, for $310 Million. Gawker mentioned a controversy surrounding privacy practices at Rapleaf. Hoffman left LiveRamp a little more than a year after it was acquired. , Hoffman is chairman of Siftery, and was listed as CEO of a company called SafeGraph.

Writer

Hoffman was a contributor to the Huffington Post, often on political subjects, as well as Business Week and his own blog called Summation.{{cite web |title= Auren Hoffman v1.31|date= September 25, 2009 |author= John Sumser |work= Top 100 Influencers blog

Hoffman is a Republican and a political contributor. Hoffman contributed to Council on Foreign Relations papers in 2004.

Controversy

In 2006, Wikipedia editors detected that Hoffman may have been editing his own Wikipedia entry, violating its guidelines. Silicon Valley media publicized the evidence, which Hoffman eventually confirmed to VentureBeat in 2007. Anonymous Wikipedia editors later edited out these references. Hoffman has also been criticized for his personal and professional networking practices and presentation of his own reputation.

From 2007 to 2013, Hoffman received significant backlash over the data collection practices and sale of individuals' personal information to advertisers by his company, RapLeaf. As a prolific blogger and public spokesperson for the company, much of the criticism was directed at Hoffman personally. A 2010 investigation by The Wall Street Journal revealed that the company transmitted identifying details about individuals to at least 12 companies, violating the terms of service of Facebook and MySpace.

A spokesperson at Facebook said it had "taken steps... to significantly limit Rapleaf's ability to use any Facebook-related data." When confronted by The Wall Street Journal and CNet, it quietly revised its privacy policy both times. CNNMoney described RapLeaf as "selling your identity," and TechCrunch characterized its method of identifiable data extraction of Google and Microsoft employees as "creepy." RapLeaf later became known as LiveRamp, and is now known as TowerData after being acquired by Acxiom.

Safegraph

Beginning in 2020, Hoffman's company Safegraph received criticism for its practice of collecting and selling location data from mobile phones. Public records requests by the Electronic Frontier Foundation revealed that between 2018 and 2020, Safegraph and its spin-off company Veraset sold or gave disaggregate, device-specific location data about millions of people to government agencies in the U.S. In 2021, Google banned Safegraph from its Android app marketplace for violating its policies. Developers who had installed Safegraph's software development kit (SDK) in their apps were forced to remove the code or have their apps taken down by Google.

In May 2022, Motherboard was able to purchase data from Safegraph which revealed aggregate information about the movements of people who visited clinics that provide abortions, including Planned Parenthood. According to the report, the data showed "where groups of people visiting the locations came from, how long they stayed there, and where they then went afterwards." The report generated concern among pro-choice advocates due to news about the impending decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which would make abortion illegal in many states.

Shortly after ''Motherboard'''s report was published, Hoffman announced that Safegraph would stop selling data about movements to and from family planning centers, saying the data did not have commercial value.

Dialog

Main article: Dialog (organization)

Hoffman and Peter Thiel co-founded Dialog, a private, invitation-only society.

Investments

Hoffman is an angel investor and briefly worked as a venture capitalist with the Founders Fund in the 2011 to 2012 timeframe.

Some of Hoffman's investments include: Aardvark (search engine) (sold to Google), BackTweets by Backtype (sold to Twitter), Blip.tv, BrightRoll, Chomp (search engine) (sold to Apple), CrowdFlower, Flowtown (sold to Demandforce which was sold to Intuit), Founders Fund, LabPixies (sold to Google), Meebo (sold to Google), MerchantCircle (sold to Reply.com), mob.ly (sold to GroupOn), Pingboard, Scopely, Thumbtack (website), Zoom Systems, and others.

References

References

1. Alexander Ljung. (September 17, 2008). "People, profiles and trust: on interpersonal trust in web-mediated social spaces". Lulu.com.
2. Kate Kaye. (May 4, 2022). "SafeGraph is under fire for selling abortion data. Its CEO says more changes are coming.". Protocol.
3. (July 2, 2011). "Weddings/Celebrations: Hallie Mitchell, Auren Hoffman". The New York Times.
4. (January 29, 2009). "Career Corner: Auren Hoffman". University of California, Berkeley College of Engineering.
5. Inside The Cult Of Kibu, by Lori Gottlieb - 2002, {{ISBN. 978-1-903985-37-3{{pageneeded. (December 2023)
6. Money Makers: Inside the New World of Finance and Business. By David Snider, Chris Howard. {{ISBN. 978-0-230-61401-7
7. (October 15, 2002). "Bullhorn Acquires Bridgepath". Bullhorn.
8. (7 October 2002). "Buy Boosts Terra Lycos' Targeted Ad Technology".
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10. (October 12, 2005). "Silicon Forum 2005". Stonebrick Group.
11. The starfish and the spider: the unstoppable power of leaderless organizations. By Ori Brafman, Rod A. Beckstrom. {{ISBN. 978-1-59184-143-2
12. Nick Denton. (April 20, 2007). "Auren Hoffman is Zelig". [[Gawker Media]] [[Valleywag]].
13. Jessica Guynn. (July 21, 2006). "Get some cash and some karma". San Francisco Chronicle.
14. NA. (October 1, 2013). "TowerData Acquires Rapleaf, Forges Comprehensive Email Data Solutions Company". Press Release.
15. "About Us". LiveRamp.
16. [http://blog.liveramp.com/2014/05/14/acxiom-signs-agreement-to-acquire-liveramp/ Acxiom Signs Agreement to Acquire LiveRamp ] {{webarchive. link. (2014-08-08)
17. Tim Faulkner. (September 18, 2007). "Can Auren Hoffman's Reputation Get Any Worse?". Gawker.
18. "Why did Auren Hoffman leave LiveRamp?".
19. "Siftery corporate website?".
20. (14 September 2016). "The Coming Ad Tech Renaissance Will Be Fueled By Chinese Money".
21. "Summation will make you think ... by Auren Hoffman ... since 1997". Blog.
22. "Auren Hoffman - $2,000 in Political Contributions for 2008".
23. David Philips. (January 15, 2004). "Center for Preventive Action: Stability, Security, and Sovereignty in the Republic of Georgia". [[Council on Foreign Relations]].
24. "Who is MLK Hamilton?".
25. Matt Marshall. (January 4, 2007). "Valley Networker Auren Hoffman's Reputation On The Line". Venture Beat.
26. "Create an online reputation".
27. "Auren Hoffman gets 100% of the vote".
28. "President Bush, others lucky enough to meet Auren Hoffman".
29. "Broadcasting your lying self — Andrew Keen".
30. "The rap on Rapleaf, the "trust meter" you can't trust".
31. (3 November 2010). "Online Behavior Tracking and Privacy: 7 Worst Case Scenarios".
32. Tim Faulkner. (September 18, 2007). "Can Auren Hoffman's Reputation Get Any Worse?". Gawker.
33. (9 April 2013). "Why is RapLeaf still tracking me across the Web?".
34. Read, Max. "The Creepy Company Compiling a File on Your Online Activity—Using Your Real Name".
35. (25 October 2010). "A Web Pioneer Profiles Users by Name". Wall Street Journal.
36. (18 October 2010). "Facebook in Privacy Breach". Wall Street Journal.
37. (26 October 2010). "Thousands of Web Users Delete Profiles from RapLeaf". Wall Street Journal.
38. Olsen, Stefanie. "People search engine Rapleaf revises privacy policy".
39. (22 March 2011). "Googlers Buy More Junk Food Than Microsofties (And Why Rapleaf Is Creepy)".
40. "Rapleaf: The company that sells your identity - Oct. 21, 2010".
41. Bennett Cyphers. (August 19, 2021). "Illinois Bought Invasive Phone Location Data from Banned Broker Safegraph".
42. Bennett Cyphers. (November 10, 2021). "Data Broker Veraset Gave Bulk Device-Level GPS Data to DC Government".
43. Joseph Cox. (August 12, 2021). "Google Bans Location Data Firm Funded by Former Saudi Intelligence Head". Motherboard.
44. Joseph Cox. (May 3, 2022). "Data Broker Is Selling Location Data of People Who Visit Abortion Clinics". Motherboard.
45. Sharon Zhang. (May 19, 2022). "Warren Calls Out Tech Firms for Selling Abortion Clinic Patients' Location Data". Truthout.
46. Allen, Mike. (7 August 2025). "Scoop: Dialog, a secretive forum, plans D.C.-area campus". Axios.
47. Dan Primack. (December 19, 2011). "Auren Hoffman joins VC firm". CNN Fortune.
48. Dan Primack. (February 5, 2013). "Silicon Valley entrepreneur departs venture capital firm". CNN Fortune.
49. "Team". Brightroll.
50. "Auren Hoffman". Huffington Post.
51. [[Business Insider]], February 8, 2011: How Meebo Got Started and Its Strategy to Make the Web More Social
52. "LinkedIn". LinkedIn.