EVERY ROOM HAS AN OPINION.
DON'T LOSE YOURS INSIDE IT.
I write and speak about the moment a room decides before you’ve finished thinking. And what to do about it.
Who is Jill Hoffman?
I grew up in Mojave, California, where the neighbors built airplanes in their garages and “impossible” was treated as a first draft.
Since then I’ve spent my career in rooms full of founders, engineers, investors, and people who are very, very sure.
I’m interested in what those rooms do to the rest of us. How fast they decide. How quickly someone says “obviously.” And what happens to the person who isn’t sure yet.
Usually, that person was right to wait.
Speaking Keynotes for rooms where everyone agrees a little too quickly. Mostly leadership teams, because they have the most to lose.
Writing In Her Orbit: one room at a time, every other week. AI, space, money, and the occasional dinner table.
Work Together A sharp second opinion before the room gives you its first one. Not coaching. Not consulting. A conversation with consequences.
How to Build an Airplane in Your Living Room A guide to living an unconventional life
Part memoir, part manifesto. What it actually costs to build something nobody else believes in.
Next: book four. Forthcoming from Greenleaf Book Group in 2027. It’s about the small tap on the shoulder that tells you something’s off, and the dozen polite ways we learn to ignore it. Get early access →
“The hardest part isn’t speaking your mind.
It’s knowing when the room has changed it.”
— Jill Hoffman
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Featured on Freakonomics
Stephen Dubner’s series How to Succeed at Failing, on grit, quitting, and knowing when to walk away. I’m the one who knows a lot about the failing part.
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Creator of In Her Orbit
Every other week, one room I’m actually in, written down while I’m still in it. A meeting, an industry, a dinner table. The scale changes. The mechanism doesn’t.
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The Family Business Was Impossible
My father, Dick Rutan, flew Voyager around the world without stopping for fuel. My uncle, Burt Rutan, designed it, and later SpaceShipOne, now in the Smithsonian. Most experts said neither would work.
It left me with a lifelong habit. When a room says “that can’t be done,” I ask to see the data.
Get In Her Orbit by email
Every other week. Free. No hot takes, no productivity hacks, no daily anything.