IT'S A MONEY MACHINE

IT'S A MONEY MACHINE

LinkedIn will celebrate twenty years on the 5th May 2023.

It’s the platform we love to hate. We can’t live with it but now can’t live without it anymore. It’s become the backbone of recruiters and salespeople. It has given the traction and visibility into markets that previously were hard to penetrate. Its allowed salespeople and recruiters the ability to map prospective clients and candidates in one platform and to reach out to them, engage and grow relationships.

It’s a global JOB BOARD a place for companies to seek candidates regardless of their size inviting candidates to apply for roles. Clients and recruiters can use it to seek people, connect and build relationships and many of us have abandoned Monster, CareerBuilder, and other traditional online job boards in favour of LinkedIn.

But it’s morphing into something else as well, a learning platform (LMS) delivering content on a range of diverse subjects. It’s a NEWS FEED not just general industry news but for companies to post news items about themselves.

So its become many things to many people from almost humble beginnings its become a monster in its own right.

Founded by Reid Hoffman, Allen Blue, Konstantin Guericke, Eric Ly, and Jean-Luc Vaillant on May 5, 2003. Its changed the way so many industries network and has become a source of information.

Sold to Microsoft in 2016 for $26.2 billion and has a current annual revenue that exceeds $13.8 billion a year with a compound 34% year-on-year growth, not a bad investment for Microsoft.

Today, LinkedIn now has more than 900 million members with over 58 million registered companies, in 200 countries, with 36 offices and 21,000 employees.

The US has the most LinkedIn users at 220 million, however over 75% of LinkedIn users are from outside of the US, Europe has 236 million,  it’s now truly global and people stay longer than any other platform (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc).

As they go to grab more business users, I believe, and hope LinkedIn must stay business focused and not turn itself into a Facebook look-a-like with lots of kittens and puppies floating around. LinkedIn has always been the business platform and needs to maintain this or run the risk of becoming just another platform. Other platforms are now trying to emulate LinkedIn and break into the business market, it needs to stay true to its original mandate.

Little known facts

A study recently found that 122 million people received an interview through LinkedIn with 35.5 million having been hired by a person they connected with on the site.

According to Chris Saccheri, formerly LinkedIn’s Director of Web Development, in the early days, user adoption was rather slow. In the first week, the service had 2,500 users, which grew to 6,000 after the first month. Within six months, there were 37,000 users.

Making money

Two years after launching, LinkedIn had more than 1.7 million professionals signed up and began unveiling several ways for it to make money.

In 2005, a still-tiny LinkedIn team celebrates a big member milestone.

The service grew from 30,000 users in October 2003 to 3.8 million in October 2005 to 8 million in April 2006. It launched its first major monetization efforts—such as charging employers $95 per job listing and offering premium accounts that allowed recruiters and others to contact members they weren’t connected with—and revenue jumped from $1.1 million in 2005 to $32 million in 2007.

2008: 13 million LinkedIn members [Photo: courtesy of LinkedIn]

With more than 30 million members at the time of Weiner’s arrival, the company had attained enough scale to build out its business model in earnest. In 2013, it reached $1.5 billion in revenue, with more than half coming from job listings and 20% from paid member subscriptions. The remainder came from advertising.

On May 19, 2011, LinkedIn became the first social media company to IPO. The stock more than doubled on its first day of trading, reaching a market cap of $9 billion. But it ended up spending only a half decade as a public company.

It was not a smooth ride, a moment of truth occurred when LinkedIn’s stock plunged by 43.6% on February 5, 2016, after the company forecasted earnings far short of Wall Street expectations (due to the sunsetting of a sales feature called Lead Accelerator, foreign currency issues, ad challenges, etc.). Eleven billion in market value evaporated, and LinkedIn reassessed its prospects as an independent entity.

Another in June 2012, the company fell victim to a hacking attempt that resulted in 6.5 million hashed passwords reportedly leaked. At the time, it was believed that over 300,000 passwords were decrypted and LinkedIn urged its users to change their passwords

Then-LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman show solidarity as LinkedIn’s blockbuster acquisition by Microsoft is announced in June 2016.

Now part of Microsoft, LinkedIn began the process of reimagining itself for a new world of work. Then COVID-19 hit—right before Roslansky succeeded Weiner as CEO. Today, LinkedIn’s momentum shows no sign of peaking.

LinkedIn in its modern form, including an “#OPENTOWORK” avatar indicating that the member is looking for new opportunities. They keep ‘Hacking It’ and it becomes harder each time. The algorithm is what changes on a regular basis and users have no choice but to keep up to still reach as many people as possible. But it’s an evolving process, especially as new companies and communities are constantly coming on-board .

According to LinkedIn, women now represent nearly 42% of the company’s leadership, with those in technical leadership roles growing 79% in the last five years.

Happy forthcoming 20th birthday LINKEDIN

WHAT WILL IT LOOK LIKE IN THE FUTURE?

LinkedIn's vision is to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. By blending human innovation with advanced technology, we're dedicated to making this goal a reality. Over the past 15 years, their AI technology has played a vital role in connecting professionals worldwide with economic opportunities, such as promoting knowledge sharing, helping managers find the most relevant candidates, and assisting small businesses in reaching their target customers.