Serial entrepreneur and investor with a strong track record of founding and leading successful companies
- Fmr CEO at LiveRamp
- CEO at SafeGraph
- General Partner at Flex Capital
- Co-Founder at multiple startups
Hiring managers spend 30 seconds scanning for a handful of signals. This score does the same, biases included. It isn't our opinion of your ability: great engineers score low when their profile undersells the work.
There is no Zelcomp on this read, because the band prices engineering roles and this profile doesn't describe one.
The school and the subject, nothing else. A CS degree from Stanford or MIT scores near 100, a strong state school around 75, an unknown school around 60. A famous school in an unrelated field scores low. This matters most early; once the work record is strong it counts for little, and at the top it counts for nothing.
BSE in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from UC Berkeley.
The heaviest category. A selective company means a bar was cleared, and real ownership inside it means the company trusted them with something. Every employer is looked up at the point they joined, so a company is judged as it was then, not as it is now.
Founded and led multiple successful companies, including LiveRamp and SafeGraph.
Staying long enough to own an outcome, then moving up, is the clearest momentum a profile can show. Several full-time roles ending under a year reads as a risk. Internships never count against this: an internship ends because it ends.
Consistent leadership roles with significant tenure at LiveRamp and SafeGraph.
Whether they have built where there was nothing yet: joined at low headcount, shipped before there was a product, started something. Founding a product inside a big company counts too. Having done it once is the best evidence they would do it again.
Founded and led multiple successful startups, including LiveRamp and SafeGraph.
Only what a stranger could find from this profile counts, so a GitHub that exists but isn't linked here is invisible to the scan. Finding nothing sets this category aside rather than scoring it zero, and its weight moves to the categories that have evidence.
The score blends these five with a single overall judgment of the whole profile, and the judgment carries the larger share. It also weighs what the categories leave out, like location: a hub city reads in-person ready, a bare country reads remote-only. Full methodology
How a hiring manager reads it
Auren Hoffman is a highly experienced entrepreneur with a proven track record of founding and leading successful companies. His leadership at LiveRamp and SafeGraph, along with his role at Flex Capital, highlights his ability to drive growth and innovation. A strong candidate for executive roles in early-stage startups.
What stands out
- Founded and led LiveRamp to become a publicly traded company
- CEO roles at multiple companies, demonstrating leadership and vision
- Strong educational background from UC Berkeley
- Significant influence as an angel investor in over 300 technology companies
What to ask on the call
- The specific impact and growth achieved at SafeGraph
- The strategic vision and execution at LiveRamp
- The role and influence at Flex Capital
- The founding and growth strategy for NQB8
Where they would thrive
Strongest as a founder or executive leader in a Series A or B startup, driving growth and innovation
Education
- BSE, Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, University of California, Berkeley
What would make this profile read better
These are changes to the page rather than conclusions about the person, and each one would move the read.
- The Aerdos role is a title and nothing else. Say what the company does and your role in its founding.
- The EliotNest role is a title and nothing else. Describe the company's mission and your contributions.
- The NQB8 role is a title and nothing else. Provide details on the company's focus and your impact.
The full read
Auren Hoffman is a seasoned entrepreneur and investor with over 31 years of experience. He has founded and led multiple companies, including LiveRamp, which became a publicly traded company. His role as CEO at SafeGraph and NQB8, along with his involvement in Flex Capital, demonstrates his ability to lead and grow companies. His education from UC Berkeley in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research adds to his strong technical foundation. The lack of detailed company records for some of his ventures does not diminish his proven track record of success in the tech industry.
Career
- Co-Founder2026-Apr to nowAerdos
- Co-Founder2025-Jan to nowEliotNest
- General Partner2018-Jan to nowFlex Capital$200M seed stage venture firm. We invest $300k to $1M in ambitious founders building generational tech companies and invest in ~50 companies a year. Portfolio: Airbyte, alphaXiv, Ampersand, AngelList, Applovin, Atlan, Ca
- CEO2016-Apr to nowNQB8
- Chairperson2025-Jan to 2025-OctSafeGraph
- Board Member2019-Oct to 2022-JunDatavant
- CEO2016-Apr to 2024-DecSafeGraphSafeGraph is the place for data about physical places. Just the data, just the facts. We focus on truth data around geospatial places and points of interest (POIs). We are just a data company. SafeGraph predicts the past
- Board Member2013-May to 2014-DecBrightRollFirst investor and board member. BrightRoll is a very large video ad exchange with hundreds of employees in the U.S. And Europe. BrightRoll was acquired by Yahoo for $640 million on Dec 15, 2014.
On the record
- Patent: Associating user identities with different unique identifiers
- Followers
- 30,703
- Connections
- 17,928
Profile as it read on August 12, 2026
In their own words
Auren is CEO of NQB8. General Partner at Flex Capital. Host: Summation podcast Fmr CEO, SafeGraph. Fmr CEO, LiveRamp (NYSE: RAMP). He is the Chairman and co-founder of Dialog. Non-employee cofounder: Windfall Data Auren is an angel investor in over 300 technology companies. He holds a B.S.E. In Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the UC Berkeley.
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