<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/amazing-career-advice-for-college-grads-from-linkedins-billionaire-founder-2013-5#page-001-1">Click to start "The 3 Secrets Of Highly Successful Graduates" ></a> REUTERS/Fred Prouser Reid Hoffman says it took him 15 years after graduating from Stanford in 1990 to figure out what he was really doing with his life.

Figure it out, he did!

Hoffman is now the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn, a $19 billion public company.

During those 15 years, Hoffman first thought he wanted to become an academic. Then he abandoned that idea to start some companies. Mostly, they flopped.

How'd he figure his path out? What lessons can today's graduates learn from Hoffman's journey?

To answer those questions Hoffman and Ben Casnocha first co-authored a book called "The Start-up of You."

Then, expanding on ideas from that book, they created a slideshow presentation for college grads called "The 3 Secrets Of Highly Successful Graduates" and allowed us to republish it here.