LinkedIn (/lɪŋktˈɪn/) is a business and employment-focused social media platform that works through websites and mobile apps. It was launched on May 5, 2003 by Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly.[6] Since December 2016, LinkedIn has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft.[7] The platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows jobseekers to post their CVs and employers to post jobs. From 2015, most of the company's revenue came from selling access to information about its members to recruiters and sales professionals.[8] LinkedIn has more than 1 billion registered members from over 200 countries and territories.[9]
Type of business
Professional network service
27 languages[1]
May 5, 2003
Mountain View, California, U.S.
Worldwide
Internet
18,500 (2024)[1]
Required
May 5, 2003
Active
LinkedIn allows members (both workers and employers) to create profiles and connect with each other in an online social network which may represent real-world professional relationships. Members can invite anyone (whether an existing member or not) to become a connection. LinkedIn can also be used to organize offline events, join groups, write articles, publish job postings, post photos and videos, and more.[10]
Company overview[edit]
Founded in Mountain View, California, LinkedIn is currently headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with 36 global offices as of February 11, 2024.[11][1] In February 2024, the company had around 18,500 employees.[12][6]
LinkedIn's current CEO is Ryan Roslansky. Jeff Weiner, previously CEO of LinkedIn, is now serving as the Executive Chairman. Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, is chairman of the board.[13][14] It was funded by Sequoia Capital, Greylock, Bain Capital Ventures,[15] Bessemer Venture Partners and the European Founders Fund.[16] LinkedIn reached profitability in March 2006.[17] Since January 2011, the company had received a total of $103 million (about $138 million in 2023) of investment.[18] LinkedIn filed for an initial public offering in January 2011 and traded its first shares in May, under the NYSE symbol "LNKD".[19]
Future plans[edit]
Economic graph[edit]
Inspired by Facebook's "social graph", LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner set a goal in 2012 to create an "economic graph" within a decade.[152] The goal was to create a comprehensive digital map of the world economy and the connections within it.[153] 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.[154][155] 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. The ultimate goal is to make the world economy and job market more efficient through increased transparency.[152] 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."[156][157]
LinkedIn has published blog posts using economic graph data to research several topics on the job market, including popular destination cities of recent college graduates,[158] areas with high concentrations of technology skills,[159] and common career transitions.[160] 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.[161]
Role in networking[edit]
LinkedIn has been described by online trade publication TechRepublic as having "become the de facto tool for professional networking".[162] LinkedIn has also been praised for its usefulness in fostering business relationships.[163] "LinkedIn is, far and away, the most advantageous social networking tool available to job seekers and business professionals today," according to Forbes.[164] LinkedIn has inspired the creation of specialised professional networking opportunities, such as co-founder Eddie Lou's Chicago startup, Shiftgig (released in 2012 as a platform for hourly workers).[165]
Criticism and controversies[edit]
Controversial design choices[edit]
Endorsement feature[edit]
The feature that allows LinkedIn members to "endorse" each other's skills and experience has been criticized as meaningless, since the endorsements are not necessarily accurate or given by people who have familiarity with the member's skills.[166] In October 2016, LinkedIn acknowledged that it "really does matter who endorsed you" and began highlighting endorsements from "coworkers and other mutual connections" to address the criticism.[167]
International restrictions[edit]
In 2009, Syrian users reported that LinkedIn server stopped accepting connections originating from IP addresses assigned to Syria. The company's customer support stated that services provided by them are subject to US export and re-export control laws and regulations and "As such, and as a matter of corporate policy, we do not allow member accounts or access to our site from Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Sudan, or Syria."[208]
In February 2011, it was reported that LinkedIn was being blocked in China after calls for a "Jasmine Revolution". It was speculated to have been blocked because it is an easy way for dissidents to access Twitter, which had been blocked previously.[209] After a day of being blocked, LinkedIn access was restored in China.[210]
In February 2014, LinkedIn launched its Simplified Chinese language version named "领英" (pinyin: Lǐngyīng; lit. 'leading elite'), officially extending their service in China.[211][212] LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner acknowledged in a blog post that they would have to censor some of the content that users post on its website in order to comply with Chinese rules, but he also said the benefits of providing its online service to people in China outweighed those concerns.[211][213] Since Autumn 2017 job postings from western countries for China aren't possible anymore.[214]
In 2016, a Moscow court ruled that LinkedIn must be blocked in Russia for violating a data retention law which requires the user data of Russian citizens to be stored on servers within the country. The relevant law had been in force there since 2014.[215][216] This ban was upheld on November 10, 2016, and all Russian ISPs began blocking LinkedIn thereafter. LinkedIn's mobile app was also banned from Google Play Store and iOS App Store in Russia in January 2017.[217][218] In July 2021 it was also blocked in Kazakhstan.[219]
In October 2021, after reports of several academicians and reporters who received notifications regarding their profiles will be blocked in China, Microsoft confirmed that LinkedIn will be shutting down in China and replaced with InJobs, a China exclusive app, citing difficulties in operating environments and increasing compliance requirements.[220] In May 2023, LinkedIn announced that it would be phasing out the app by 9 August 2023.[221]
Open-source contributions[edit]
Since 2010, LinkedIn has contributed several internal technologies, tools, and software products to the open source domain.[222] Notable among these projects is Apache Kafka, which was built and open sourced at LinkedIn in 2011.[223]
Research using data from the platform[edit]
Massive amounts of data from LinkedIn allow scientists and machine learning researchers to extract insights and build product features.[224] For example, this data can help to shape patterns of deception in resumes. Findings suggested that people commonly lie about their hobbies rather than their work experience on online resumes.[225]
