LinkedIn

The company was founded in December 2002 by Reid Hoffman and founding team members from PayPal and Socialnet.com (Allen Blue, Eric Ly, Jean-Luc Vaillant, Lee Hower, Konstantin Guericke, Stephen Beitzel, David Eves, Ian McNish, Yan Pujante, Chris Saccheri).[22] In late 2003, Sequoia Capital led the Series A investment in the company.[23] In August 2004, LinkedIn reached 1 million users.[24] In March 2006, LinkedIn achieved its first month of profitability.[24] In April 2007, LinkedIn reached 10 million users.[24] In February 2008, LinkedIn launched a mobile version of the site.[25]

In June 2008, Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, and other venture capital firms purchased a 5% stake in the company for $53 million, giving the company a post-money valuation of approximately $1 billion.[26] In November 2009, LinkedIn opened its office in Mumbai[27] and soon thereafter in Sydney, as it started its Asia-Pacific team expansion. In 2010, LinkedIn opened an International Headquarters in Dublin, Ireland,[28] received a $20 million investment from Tiger Global Management LLC at a valuation of approximately $2 billion,[29] announced its first acquisition, Mspoke,[30] and improved its 1% premium subscription ratio.[31] In October of that year, Silicon Valley Insider ranked the company No. 10 on its Top 100 List of most valuable startups.[32] By December, the company was valued at $1.575 billion in private markets.[33]

LinkedIn office building at 222 Second Street in San Francisco (opened in March 2016)

LinkedIn office in Toronto

LinkedIn filed for an initial public offering in January 2011. The company traded its first shares on May 19, 2011, under the NYSE symbol "LNKD", at $45 per share. Shares of LinkedIn rose as much as 171% on their first day of trade on the New York Stock Exchange and closed at $94.25, more than 109% above IPO price. Shortly after the IPO, the site's underlying infrastructure was revised to allow accelerated revision-release cycles.[12] In 2011, LinkedIn earned $154.6 million in advertising revenue alone, surpassing Twitter, which earned $139.5 million.[34] LinkedIn's fourth-quarter 2011 earnings soared because of the company's increase in success in the social media world.[35] By this point, LinkedIn had about 2,100 full-time employees compared to the 500 that it had in 2010.[36]

In April 2014, LinkedIn announced that it had leased 222 Second Street, a 26-story building under construction in San Francisco's SoMa district, to accommodate up to 2,500 of its employees,[37] with the lease covering 10 years.[11] The goal was to join all San Francisco-based staff (1,250 as of January 2016) in one building, bringing sales and marketing employees together with the research and development team.[11] They started to move in in March 2016.[11] In February 2016, following an earnings report, LinkedIn's shares dropped 43.6% within a single day, down to $108.38 per share. LinkedIn lost $10 billion of its market capitalization that day.[38][39]

On June 13, 2016, Microsoft announced that it would acquire LinkedIn for $196 a share, a total value of $26.2 billion and the largest acquisition made by Microsoft to date. The acquisition would be an all-cash, debt-financed transaction. Microsoft would allow LinkedIn to "retain its distinct brand, culture and independence", with Weiner to remain as CEO, who would then report to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Analysts believed Microsoft saw the opportunity to integrate LinkedIn with its Office product suite to help better integrate the professional network system with its products. The deal was completed on December 8, 2016.[40]

In late 2016, LinkedIn announced a planned increase of 200 new positions in its Dublin office, which would bring the total employee count to 1,200.[41]

As of 2017, 94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to distribute content.[42]

In 2019, LinkedIn launched globally the feature Open for Business[43] that enables freelancers to be discovered on the platform. LinkedIn Events was launched in the same year.[44]

In February 2020, LinkedIn announced that Jeff Weiner will step down as CEO and become executive chairman after 11 years in the role. Ryan Roslansky, the current senior vice president of product, will become CEO as of June 1, 2020.[45]

In July 2012, LinkedIn acquired 15 key Digg patents for $4 million including a "click a button to vote up a story" patent.[46]

Number	Acquisition date	Company	Business	Country	Price	Description	Ref.
1	August 4, 2010	mspoke	Adaptive personalization of content	USA	$0.6 million[47]	LinkedIn Recommendations	[48]
2	September 23, 2010	ChoiceVendor	Social B2B Reviews	USA	$3.9 million[49]	Rate and review B2B service providers	[50]
3	January 26, 2011	CardMunch	Social Contacts	USA	$1.7 million[47]	Scan and import business cards	[51]
4	October 5, 2011	Connected	Social CRM	USA	-	LinkedIn Connected	[52]
5	October 11, 2011	IndexTank	Social search	USA	-	LinkedIn Search	[53]
6	February 22, 2012	Rapportive	Social Contacts	USA	$15 million[54]	-	[55]
7	May 3, 2012	SlideShare	Social Content	USA	$119 million	Give LinkedIn members a way to discover people through content	[56]
8	April 11, 2013	Pulse	Web / Mobile newsreader	USA	$90 million	Definitive professional publishing platform	[57]
9	February 6, 2014	Bright.com	Job Matching	USA	$120 million		[58]
10	July 14, 2014	Newsle	Web application	USA	-	Allows users to follow real news about their Facebook friends, LinkedIn contacts, and public figures.	[59]
11	July 22, 2014	Bizo	Web application	USA	$175 million	Helps advertisers reach businesses and professionals	[60]
12	March 16, 2015	Careerify	Web application	Canada	-	Helps businesses hire people using social media	[61]
13	April 2, 2015	Refresh.io	Web application	USA	-	Surfaces insights about people in your networks right before you meet them	[62]
14	April 9, 2015	Lynda.com	eLearning	USA	$1.5 billion[63]	Lets users learn business, technology, software, and creative skills through videos	[64]
15	August 28, 2015	Fliptop	Predictive Sales and Marketing Firm	USA	-	Using data science to help companies close more sales	[65]
16	February 4, 2016	Connectifier	Web application	USA	-	Helps companies with their recruiting	[66]
17	July 26, 2016	PointDrive	Web application	USA	-	Lets salespeople share visual content with prospective clients to help seal the deal	[67]
18	September 16, 2018	Glint Inc.	Web application	USA	-	Employee engagement platform.	[68]
19	May 28, 2019	Drawbridge	Marketing Solutions	USA			[69]

In 2013, a class action lawsuit entitled Perkins vs. LinkedIn Corp was filed against the company, accusing it of automatically sending invitations to contacts in a member's email address book without permission. The court agreed with LinkedIn that permission had in fact been given for invitations to be sent, but not for the two further reminder emails.[70] LinkedIn settled the lawsuit in 2015 for $13 million.[71] Many members should have received a notice in their email with the subject line "Legal Notice of Settlement of Class Action". The Case No. is 13-CV-04303-LHK.[72]

In May 2017, LinkedIn sent a Cease-And-Desist letter to hiQ Labs, a Silicon Valley startup that collects data from public profiles and provides analysis of this data to its customers. The letter demanded that hiQ immediately cease "scraping" data from LinkedIn's servers, claiming violations of the CFAA (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) and the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act).

In response, hiQ sued LinkedIn in the Northern District of California in San Francisco, asking the court to prohibit LinkedIn from blocking its access to public profiles while the court considered the merits of its request. The court served a preliminary injunction against LinkedIn, which was then forced to allow hiQ to continue to collect public data. LinkedIn appealed this ruling; in September 2019, the appeals court rejected LinkedIn's arguments and the preliminary injunction was upheld.[73] The dispute is ongoing.

The basic functionality of LinkedIn allows users (workers and employers) to create profiles, which for employees typically consist of a curriculum vitae describing their work experience, education and training, skills, and a personal photo. Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates. Users can find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one's contact network. Users can save (i.e. bookmark) jobs that they would like to apply for. Users also have the ability to follow different companies.

The site also enables members to make "connections" to each other in an online social network which may represent real-world professional relationships. Members can invite anyone (whether a site member or not) to become a connection. However, if the invitee selects "I don't know" or "Spam", this counts against the inviter. If the inviter gets too many of such responses, the member's account may be restricted or closed.[9] Users can obtain introductions to the connections of connections (termed second-degree connections) and connections of second-degree connections (termed third-degree connections).

A member's list of connections can be used in a number of ways. For example, users can search for second-degree connections (such as hiring managers) who work at a company they are interested in, and then ask a specific first-degree connection in common for an introduction.[79] The "gated-access approach" (where contact with any professional requires either an existing relationship, or the intervention of a contact of theirs) is intended to build trust among the service's users. LinkedIn participated in the EU's International Safe Harbor Privacy Principles.[10]

Users can interact with each other in a variety of ways:

• Connections can interact by choosing to "like" posts and "congratulate" others on updates such as birthdays, anniversaries and new positions, as well as by direct messaging.
• Users can share video with text and filters with the introduction of LinkedIn Video.[80][81]
• Users can write posts and articles[82] within the LinkedIn platform to share with their network.

When a user accepts an invitation from another user, they have a first-level connection; the user is indirectly connected to the other user's connections with what LinkedIn terms second-level and third-level connections.

LinkedIn is particularly well-suited for personal branding which, according to Sandra Long, entails "actively managing one's image and unique value" to position oneself for career opportunities.[83] LinkedIn has evolved from being a mere platform for job searchers into a social network which allows users a chance to create a personal brand.[84] Career coach Pamela Green describes a personal brand as the "emotional experience you want people to have as a result of interacting with you," and a LinkedIn profile is an aspect of that.[85] A contrasting report suggests that a personal brand is a "a public-facing persona, exhibited on LinkedIn, Twitter and other networks, that showcases expertise and fosters new connections."[86]

LinkedIn allows professionals to build exposure for their personal brand within the site itself as well as in the World Wide Web as a whole. With a tool that LinkedIn dubs a Profile Strength Meter, the site encourages users to offer enough information in their profile to optimize visibility by search engines. A basic profile should include a person's industry and location, an up-to-date job description, two past positions, education, at least three skills, a profile picture, and at least fifty connections.[83] Web activity such as liking and commenting on content, as well as publishing LinkedIn blog articles and being involved in LinkedIn groups can increase views of one's profile, according to Long.[83] Advisor Kristin Sherry agrees, who recommended that users should engage with commenters and "give give give".[87] Profiles should be written in first person and have well-chosen keywords and list relevant skills, according to Long.[83] In 2016, user profiles with five or more relevant skills were viewed seventeen times more often than those with fewer skills.[83] These skills could be enhanced with recommendations and endorsements to solidify one's social proof.[83] A profile should have internal consistency, so that the headline and image and skills mesh into an easy-to-grasp picture.[83] Long recommends that users update their profiles regularly; a survey by Post Road Consulting found that over two-thirds of respondents spent two or more hours updating their profile every year.[83] LinkedIn's Shiva Kumar advised users to have a good profile picture and showcase one's achievements "without buzzwords".[88] It can strengthen a user's LinkedIn presence if he or she belongs to professional groups in the site.[89][83] The site enables users to add video to their profiles.[87] Some users hire a professional photographer for one's profile photo.[90] Video presentations can be added to one's profile.[91] LinkedIn's capabilities have been expanding so rapidly that a cottage industry of outside consultants has grown up to help users navigate the system.[92][87][93] A particular emphasis is helping users with their LinkedIn profiles.[92]

There’s no hiding in the long grass on LinkedIn ... The number one mistake people make on the profile is to not have a photo.

— Sandra Long of Post Road Consulting, 2017[94]

LinkedIn enables job-seekers and employers to connect. According to Jack Meyer, the site has become the "premier digital platform" for professionals to network online.[89] For example, in Australia, which has approximately twelve million working professionals, ten million of them are on LinkedIn, according to Anastasia Santaraneos, suggesting that the probability was high that one's "future employer is probably on the site."[88] According to one estimate based on worldwide figures, 122 million users got job interviews via LinkedIn and 35 million were hired by a LinkedIn online connection.[95] Not only helping job applicants meet employers, LinkedIn can help small businesses connect with customers.[96] Connections are important in boosting a user's standing and presence in LinkedIn. In the site's parlance, two users have a "first-degree connection" when one accepts an invitation from another.[95] People connected to each of them are "second-degree connections" and persons connected to the second-degree connections are "third-degree connections."[95] This forms a user's internal LinkedIn network. As these connections get stronger and deeper, the user's profile is more likely to appear in searches by employers and others.

The premise for connecting with someone has shifted significantly in recent years. Prior to the 2017 new interface being launched, whenever people tried to connect with someone they were prompted to select how they knew that person. In other words, LinkedIn encouraged connections between people who'd already worked together, studied together, done business together or the like. Since 2017 that step has been removed from the connection request process - and users are allowed to connect with up to 30,000 people. This change means LinkedIn is now far more of a proactive networking site, be that for job applicants trying to secure a career move or for salespeople wanting to generate new client leads.

For job applicants, cold call messaging on LinkedIn generally is ineffective.[83] So messages should have a personal touch, such as the person read their book or heard them speak at a conference or have a common contact, according to Maddy Osman.[95] The message header should be short and specific.[95] Similarly, salespeople enjoy greater success when they use a personal touch in their messages and try to simply get a conversation started rather than immediately trying to get a meeting.

In June 2012, cryptographic hashes of approximately 6.4 million LinkedIn user passwords were stolen by hackers who then published the stolen hashes online.[97] This action is known as the 2012 LinkedIn hack. In response to the incident, LinkedIn asked its users to change their passwords. Security experts criticized LinkedIn for not salting their password file and for using a single iteration of SHA-1.[98] On May 31, 2013 LinkedIn added two-factor authentication, an important security enhancement for preventing hackers from gaining access to accounts.[99] In May 2016, 117 million LinkedIn usernames and passwords were offered for sale online for the equivalent of $2,200.[100] These account details are believed to be sourced from the original 2012 LinkedIn hack, in which the number of user IDs stolen had been underestimated. To handle the large volume of emails sent to its users every day with notifications for messages, profile views, important happenings in their network, and other things, LinkedIn uses the Momentum email platform from Message Systems.[101]

In 2014, Dell SecureWorks Counter Threat Unit (CTU) discovered that Threat Group-2889, an Iran-based group, created 25 fake LinkedIn accounts. The accounts were either fully developed personas or supporting personas, and they use spearphishing or malicious websites to comprise victims' information.[102]

According to reporting by Le Figaro, France's General Directorate for Internal Security and Directorate-General for External Security believe that Chinese spies have used LinkedIn to target thousands of business and government officials as potential sources of information.[103]

In 2017, Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) published information alleging that Chinese intelligence services had created fake social media profiles on sites such as LinkedIn, using them to gather information on German politicians and government officials.[104][105]

LinkedIn 'applications' often refers to external third party applications that interact with LinkedIn's developer API. However, in some cases, it could refer to sanctioned applications featured on a user's profile page.

On February 12, 2015, LinkedIn released an updated terms of use for their developer API.[106] The developer API allows both companies and individuals the ability to interact with LinkedIn's data through creation of managed third party applications. Applications must go through a review process and request permission from the user before accessing a user's data.

Normal use of the API is outlined in LinkedIn's developer documents,[107] including:

• Sign into external services using LinkedIn
• Add items or attributes to a user profile
• Share items or articles to user's timeline

In October 2008, LinkedIn enabled an "applications platform" which allows external online services to be embedded within a member's profile page. Among the initial applications were an Amazon Reading List that allows LinkedIn members to display books they are reading, a connection to Tripit, and a Six Apart, WordPress and TypePad application that allows members to display their latest blog postings within their LinkedIn profile.[108] In November 2010, LinkedIn allowed businesses to list products and services on company profile pages; it also permitted LinkedIn members to "recommend" products and services and write reviews.[109] Shortly after, some of the external services were no longer supported, including Amazon's Reading List.

A mobile version of the site was launched in February 2008, which gives access to a reduced feature set over a mobile phone. The mobile service is available in six languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish.[110] In January 2011, LinkedIn acquired CardMunch, a mobile app maker that scans business cards and converts into contacts.[111] In June 2013, CardMunch was noted as an available LinkedIn app.[12] In August 2011, LinkedIn revamped its mobile applications on the iPhone, Android and HTML5. At the time, mobile page views of the application were increasing roughly 400% year over year according to CEO Jeff Weiner.[112] In October 2013, LinkedIn announced a service for iPhone users called "Intro", which inserts a thumbnail of a person's LinkedIn profile in correspondence with that person when reading mail messages in the native iOS Mail program.[113] This is accomplished by re-routing all emails from and to the iPhone through LinkedIn servers, which security firm Bishop Fox asserts has serious privacy implications, violates many organizations' security policies, and resembles a man-in-the-middle attack.[114][115]

LinkedIn also supports the formation of interest groups, and as of March 29, 2012 there are 1,248,019 such groups whose membership varies from 1 to 744,662.[116][117] The majority of the largest groups are employment related, although a very wide range of topics are covered mainly around professional and career issues, and there are currently 128,000 groups for both academic and corporate alumni. Groups support a limited form of discussion area, moderated by the group owners and managers.[118] Since groups offer the functionality to reach a wide audience without so easily falling foul of anti-spam solutions, there is a constant stream of spam postings, and there now exists a range of firms who offer a spamming service for this very purpose. LinkedIn has devised a few mechanisms to reduce the volume of spam,[119] but recently took the decision to remove the ability of group owners to inspect the email address of new members in order to determine if they were spammers. Groups also keep their members informed through emails with updates to the group, including most talked about discussions within your professional circles.[116][120] Groups may be private, accessible to members only or may be open to Internet users in general to read, though they must join in order to post messages.

In December 2011, LinkedIn announced that they are rolling out polls to groups.[121] In November 2013, LinkedIn announced the addition of Showcase Pages to the platform.[122] In 2014, LinkedIn announced they were going to be removing Product and Services Pages[123] paving the way for a greater focus on Showcase Pages.[124]

LinkedIn allows users to research companies, non-profit organizations, and governments they may be interested in working for. Typing the name of a company or organization in the search box causes pop-up data about the company or organization to appear. Such data may include the ratio of female to male employees, the percentage of the most common titles/positions held within the company, the location of the company's headquarters and offices, and a list of present and former employees. In July 2011, LinkedIn launched a new feature allowing companies to include an "Apply with LinkedIn" button on job listing pages.[125] The new plugin allowed potential employees to apply for positions using their LinkedIn profiles as resumes.[125]

Job recruiters, head hunters, and personnel HR are increasingly using LinkedIn as a source for finding potential candidates. By using the Advanced search tools, recruiters can find members matching their specific key words with a click of a button. They then can make contact with those members by sending a request to connect or by sending InMail about a specific job opportunity he or she may have. Recruiters also often join industry-based groups on LinkedIn to create connections with professionals in that line of business.[126]

Since September 2012, LinkedIn has enabled users to "endorse" each other's skills. This feature also allows users to efficiently provide commentary on other users' profiles – network building is reinforced. However, there is no way of flagging anything other than positive content.[127] LinkedIn solicits endorsements using algorithms that generate skills members might have. Members cannot opt out of such solicitations, with the result that it sometimes appears that a member is soliciting an endorsement for a non-existent skill.[128]

LinkedIn continues to add different services to its platform to expand the ways that people use it. On May 7, 2015, LinkedIn added an analytics tool to its publishing platform. The tool allows authors to better track traffic that their posts receive.[129]

The LinkedIn Influencers program launched in October 2012 and features global thought leaders who share their professional insights with LinkedIn's members. As of May 2016, there are 750+ Influencers, approximately 74% of which are male.[130] The program is invite-only and features leaders from a range of industries including Richard Branson, Narendra Modi, Arianna Huffington, Greg McKeown, Rahm Emanuel, Jamie Dimon, Martha Stewart, Deepak Chopra, Jack Welch, and Bill Gates.[131][132]

LinkedIn's Profinder is a marketplace where freelancers can (for a monthly subscription fee) bid for project proposals submitted by individuals and small businesses .[133] In 2017, it had around 60,000 freelancers in more than 140 service areas, such as headshot photography, bookkeeping or tax filing.[133]

LinkedIn Top Companies is a series of lists published by LinkedIn, identifying companies in the United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico and the United Kingdom that are attracting the most intense interest from job candidates. The 2019 lists identified Google's parent company, Alphabet, as the most sought-after U.S. company, with Facebook ranked second and Amazon ranked third.[134] The lists are based on more than one billion actions by LinkedIn members worldwide. The Top Companies lists were started in 2016 and are published annually.

In mid-2008, LinkedIn launched LinkedIn DirectAds as a form of sponsored advertising.[135] In October 2008, LinkedIn revealed plans to open its social network of 30 million professionals globally as a potential sample for business-to-business research. It is testing a potential social network revenue model – research that to some appears more promising than advertising.[136] On July 23, 2013, LinkedIn announced their Sponsored Updates ad service. Individuals and companies can now pay a fee to have LinkedIn sponsor their content and spread it to their user base. This is a common way for social media sites such as LinkedIn to generate revenue.[137]

Inspired by Facebook's "social graph", LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner set a goal in 2012 to create an "economic graph" within a decade.[138] The goal is to create a comprehensive digital map of the world economy and the connections within it.[139] The economic graph was to be built on the company's current platform with data nodes including companies, jobs, skills, volunteer opportunities, educational institutions, and content.[140][141][142] They have been hoping to include all the job listings in the world, all the skills required to get those jobs, all the professionals who could fill them, and all the companies (nonprofit and for-profit) at which they work.[140] The ultimate goal is to make the world economy and job market more efficient through increased transparency.[138] In June 2014, the company announced its "Galene" search architecture to give users access to the economic graph's data with more thorough filtering of data, via user searches like "Engineers with Hadoop experience in Brazil."[143][144]

LinkedIn has used economic graph data to research several topics on the job market, including popular destination cities of recent college graduates,[145] areas with high concentrations of technology skills,[146] and common career transitions.[147] LinkedIn provided the City of New York with data from economic graph showing "in-demand" tech skills for the city's "Tech Talent Pipeline" project.[148]

Following the launch of the new user interface (UI), some users, complained about the missing features which were there in the older version, slowness, and bugs in it. The issues were faced by both free and premium users, and with both the desktop version and the mobile version of the site.

LinkedIn sends "invite emails" to Outlook contacts from its members' email accounts, without obtaining their consent. The "invitations" give the impression that the e-mail holder themself has sent the invitation. If there is no response, the answer will be repeated several times ("You have not yet answered XY's invitation.") LinkedIn was sued in the United States on charges of hijacking e-mail accounts and spamming. The company argued with the right to freedom of expression. In addition, the users concerned would be supported in building a network.[177][178][179]

At the end of 2013, it was announced that the LinkedIn app intercepted users' emails and silently moved them to LinkedIn servers for full access.[180] LinkedIn used man-in-the-middle attacks.[181]

The German Stiftung Warentest has criticized that the balance of rights between users and LinkedIn is disproportionate, restricting users' rights excessively while granting the company far-reaching rights.[182] It has also been claimed that LinkedIn does not respond to consumer protection center requests.[183]

In November 2016, Russia announced its intention to block the network in its own country, as it "illegally stores data of Russian users on servers abroad." The relevant law had been in force there since 2014.[184][185]

In July 2018, Credit Wise reported "dark web" email and password exposures from LinkedIn. Shortly thereafter, users began receiving extortion emails, using that information as "evidence" that users' contacts had been hacked, and threatening to expose pornographic videos featuring the users. LinkedIn asserts that this is related to the 2012 breach; however, there is no evidence that this is the case.[186]