
LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value - danso
http://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-earnings-q4-2016-2
======
pyrrhotech
A lot of people hating on LNKD here, but this isn't really company-specific.
This is a macro shift. LNKD being down by 40% by only guiding down 8% below
estimates is a big warning of how the market is about to treat all bloated
growth stocks. In 2013, if they reported the same results, the stock would
have been flat or slightly down. It's a major shift in investor sentiment.

Bubble bursts always start in the public markets. Next, VC-backed "unicorns"
with ludicrous multiples will soon find themselves unable to raise cash at
even half their previous valuations. Then those companies will have to tighten
their spending which means layoffs and smaller revenue growth which is a
vicious cycle towards even lower valuations, bankruptcies and ultimately a
much worse job market for tech workers.

I'm expecting a 30-40% decline in S&P 500, 30% decline in bay area real estate
values, 30% of bay area "well-funded" startups going bust, and 25% reduction
in market rate pay for software engineers over the next 2 years. Hopefully
that will turn out to be a gloomy forecast, but it's best to prepare for the
worst.

~~~
sinzone
> 30% decline in bay area real estate values.

that won't happen. During the 2008 big burst everywhere in USA was felling
apart but in SF real-estate was just down 5%-10%.

SF can't expand easily since it's water 3/4 all around. Demand still high and
supply very low.

That won't change dramatically, with or without a collapse in the public
market.

~~~
pjdemers
During the 2001-2002 bust, bay area rents fell 50% in marginal neighborhoods.
In desirable neighborhoods, rents fell maybe 10%. Prices to buy came down, but
not nearly as much. In marginal areas 20%, in desirable neighborhoods, maybe
1%. Small houses and fixer-uppers in the 10/10/10 school districts (ie, Palo
Alto) kept going up. One reason is that construction prices fell 30%, so there
was allot of tears downs and renovation happening.

~~~
justinzollars
what happened to the Small houses and fixer-uppers in the 9/8/8 school
districts?

~~~
suls
What's the meaning of 10/10/10 or 9/8/8?

~~~
ctime
schools

ele/mid/hs

[http://www.greatschools.org](http://www.greatschools.org)

------
bnchrch
Honestly I am feeling a bit of joy watching LinkedIn take a hit. Not because I
think their product is terrible but because of the endless spam emails I keep
receiving from them, despite how many times I click unsubscribe.

~~~
uptown
Or how about the phony "people you may know". They suggested I may know my 4
year old Niece because somebody uploaded the email address created for her
into their system. She definitely doesn't have a LinkedIn account, but they
portray a profile-photoless "shadow profile" as-if she does.

~~~
pen2l
That happens to me too. But you know who is a thousand times worse than
Linkedin when it comes to these things? Facebook.

At this point, I honest /just/ /don't/ /know/ how to stop getting emails from
them. In my entire life I've only had a facebook account for a few hours
(created one out of necessity a few years ago -- closed it after just a few
hours of use at that time). And I still get emails. I've clicked unsubscribed
probably fifty times by now, but I still keep getting emails. I just don't
know how to stop it. Incidentally this is one of the reasons I cheer for
blackhats taking shots at Facebook, I'd love to see the behemoth shot down.
They don't respect me or my time, I don't respect them.

~~~
__jal
Anything from a Facebook domain hitting my mail server is bounces them back to
Facebook's abuse and postmaster addresses. I know categorically that it is
abuse, because I am the sole user of my mail server and do not now and have
never had a Facebook account, and have repeatedly asked them in various ways
to stop spamming me.

Useless, of course. But just because they ignore internet norms of decent
behavior doesn't mean I will.

~~~
seanwilson
For what it's worth I have a Facebook account and have all the email
notification settings off and can't remember seeing an email from Facebook in
over a year.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I noticed that when I stopped checking my Facebook account, Facebook started
sending me FOMO messages ("Hey! You have messages! People are saying things!
Please come look!")

~~~
username223
I noticed them doing that as well, and did what I usually do with companies
that get too chatty: First, turn off the notifications, unsubscribe, etc.
Then, if they ignore my preferences or keep adding new categories of
notification that are enabled by default, I add a client-side rule to throw
away everything they send. This way they get to keep thinking that I receive
their spam, and I don't have to see it, which is a win-win (though a sad loss
for email in general as an obsessively reliable communication system).

This worked out fine for Facebook: I visit their webpage when I want to know
what's going on over there, and they never send me email.

------
dawhizkid
LinkedIn is the king of "dark patterns" UI - every part of their website is
optimized to trick you into doing something you have no intention of doing.

~~~
designtofly
And I absolutely hate that they track which profiles you view and then display
that information in the side bar under "people who viewed this profile also
viewed". Unless you're looking at high profile person with millions of views,
the "also viewed" list becomes a list of friends and not people in the same
field or similar job profiles. If I ever have to click on a LinkedIn link, I
always go into incognito mode.

~~~
randycupertino
I created a dummy linkedin profile exactly because of this. I kept getting
notifications that an ex from 5 years ago was constantly looking at my
profile.

Linkedin is so scammy.

------
jameslk
Lots of angry sentiment towards this company here. I understand it doesn't
necessarily bring this demographic as much value since most here are probably
happily employed and don't need it. There's plenty of others who count on a
service like LinkedIn, which doesn't have a good comparison (e.g. Twitter to
Facebook).

Personally, I've found value in it from the potential clients I've received
(I'm a contractor) and the ability to look up just about anyone I may need to
do business with. I use it professionally to get an overview of others like I
use Wikipedia to get an overview of a topic.

I do know they have room to improve. I've been using the service since 2006
and have seen all manner of their silly practices. But as a well-known,
professional network with a large userbase, I have yet to find a rivaling
alternative.

~~~
Angostura
The angry sentiment isn't because people don't see potential value. It's
because they _do_ see the value - and how the company keeps spoiling what
could be a good user experience.

~~~
jameslk
My speculation is that without any comparable competitors, there's nothing to
force LinkedIn to change the negative aspects of their service. If there were
two competing services, we would see users gravitating towards the service
they prefer and the other service desperately trying to correct itself. For
example, when Yahoo introduced suggested searches, Google noticed and picked
up the feature too. Alternatively, when IE6 was king, they let it stagnate and
look at what happened.

So from that standpoint, I hope that LinkedIn doesn't fail, but rather a
competing service nurtures an environment where LinkedIn has to compete. Then
hopefully we can see improvements towards what users really want.

~~~
enraged_camel
The reason a LinkedIn competitor hasn't emerged is the same reason a viable
Facebook competitor hasn't emerged: at this point the network effects are too
strong, and it's extremely difficult to beat incumbents because of that.

Besides, think about how much flak some HN submissions get for being "just
another social network." I think the whole social network market has fully
saturated and there will be additional difficulty in convincing people there
is room for more social networks (aside from certain niche differentiators
such as centralized vs distributed, which 99% of users don't care about).

~~~
srunni
> The reason a LinkedIn competitor hasn't emerged is the same reason a viable
> Facebook competitor hasn't emerged: at this point the network effects are
> too strong, and it's extremely difficult to beat incumbents because of that.

I'd say LinkedIn actually has stronger network effects than Facebook, or other
consumer social networks. Consumer social networks are used more casually, so
it's easier to get users to sign up than it would be for a professional social
network, where users tend to adopt a more conservative mindset. And we've seen
several consumer social networks rise in the post-Facebook era - Snapchat,
WhatsApp, and Instagram.

~~~
karmelapple
The only social network I can reliably guess that someone is on, regardless of
job type, is, alas, LinkedIn.

My friend who is a biologist doesn't have a Twitter since nobody in her field
uses it, but she has a LinkedIn.

My software developer friends have Twitter, so that's my go-to... but then
it's a mishmash of business and personal. Or sometimes only personal, so it
feels weird to talk business over it. So then... email, since soft devs -
rightfully so - dislike LinkedIn.

I don't know the solution, but it's clear one should be built. Does LinkedIn
have an easy "export my social graph" option to at least jump start w
competitor?

~~~
srunni
There's an export contacts feature, which was restored after removing it
resulted in a user backlash ([http://venturebeat.com/2015/07/25/linkedin-
brings-back-tool-...](http://venturebeat.com/2015/07/25/linkedin-brings-back-
tool-for-exporting-contacts-after-user-backlash/)). But if a competitor tried
to create a one-click feature for programatically exporting contacts from
LinkedIn and importing them into their own database, they would probably get
banned. And for the vast majority of users, explaining how to export/import a
CSV manually is not viable.

~~~
selllikesybok
It gets you five columns - name/title/company/email/location.

Unlike the old export feature, it's also frequently missing your latest
connections (30-60 days worth, I think).

------
joshhart
Hi everyone,

I'm Joshua Hartman, the lead engineer for all of LinkedIn's consumer products.
Thanks for all the passionate feedback here and we really appreciate it. I
just wanted to say that we've been hard at work trying to improve the clarity
of our products over the last year and this is something that we will continue
to focus on going forward. Many of you have spoken of high volumes of emails.
In 2015 LinkedIn built a piece of infrastructure called the "Air Traffic
Controller" to make sure our communications are relevant. This infrastructure
enabled us to cut the volume of email we sent by 50% and reduce customer
complaints by 40% in 2015 - [http://blog.linkedin.com/2015/11/10/sending-less-
email-is-ju...](http://blog.linkedin.com/2015/11/10/sending-less-email-is-
just-the-beginning/). We know we have a lot more work to do for LinkedIn to
work really well for the tech industry, and we have heard you and will keep
refining the experience.

Thanks! \- Josh Hartman

~~~
soared
I have a question! I'm a student and have noticed 5 or so profiles that
connect with 20+ of my classmates/friends with impressive but beleivable
titles at well known companies (Human resources at IBM) [1] and generic job
histories. The names only exist on linkedin. Its obvious they are either just
scraping profiles or something more nefarious. What are you doing to stop the
creation of these fake profiles? Why are my friends so dumb?

[1] Fake profile examples, with 20+ in common connections:
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonia-
bargo-04b09829](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonia-bargo-04b09829)
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/linda-
bertoli-48909829](https://www.linkedin.com/in/linda-bertoli-48909829)

~~~
soared
Due to boredom I did more research. Reverse image searched the profile pic,
found it on a yelp profile writing fake 5 star reviews and one of those fake
sites that 'let employers fight over you.'

------
suprgeek
All those celebrating this event - don't.

If you think these guys were using shady and scummy tactics before to spam you
and steal your contacts, what do you think they are going to do when their
share price sinks? Suddenly reform and stop the borderline-illegal stuff?

LinkedIn will get even more aggressive at monetization. So expect even more
of:

1) Random clicks that let you "invite" everyone in your address book

2) Incessant daily nag e-mails - "Complete your profile"

3) Blatant Man-in-the-Middle attacks for stuff you browse on your mobile

4) Data harvesting and selling even more stuff about you

5) etc, etc, etc

If ever there was a market ready to be "disrupted" this is it. Google could
have done this with G+, Twitter can do this today with proper reorientation,
Heck FB could wipe the floor with these jokers (WhatsApp could too).

~~~
Pxtl
> Google could have done this with G+, Twitter can do this today with proper
> reorientation, Heck FB could wipe the floor with these jokers (WhatsApp
> could too).

I keep waiting for any of those companies to pull their heads out of their
butts and realize this.

Google's product strategy seems to be a random-walk, Twitter's platform is too
far from LinkedIn's workflow to make it work, but Facebook? Facebook is the
kind of company I'd thought would have figured this out.

~~~
selllikesybok
[https://work.fb.com/](https://work.fb.com/) ?

~~~
Pxtl
Work is for internal team use, I think, not for personal professional
development. Users accounts won't persist across multiple jobs.

------
ChuckMcM
I've been registered on LinkedIn for a long time and found it a fun an useful
way to catch up on people moving around and advancing their careers, what used
to be done at the occasional cocktail party or celebration could be done
faster and quicker by scanning the changes. And that has helped me stay in
professional touch with people with whom I might otherwise lose touch.

But that said, I've recognized their maniacal monetezation schemes with
trepidation. Is is it really "valuable" to me to see the names of everyone who
has looked at my profile? Is it $5/month valuable? No. Is it valuable to
LinkedIn that people who don't know me can find me there? Apparently the
recruiters think it is. So the place where I feel LinkedIn is suffering is
that it makes it painful to stay on the site as one of the 'targets'. And that
is getting them into trouble. Because if the only people there are recruiters
and nobody else, it won't have any value to the recruiters either.

All of _that_ points to some serious strategic myopia at the top. They need to
take their top leadership into a room for a weekend and get on the same page
about how to run that business, MySpace is the canonical example of getting
the calculus wrong.

~~~
rubidium
I paid for premium for about 4 months while job searching. Being able to deep-
dive into some companies and directly contact people helped me get my current
job. It was definitely a helpful tool as a job-searcher.

Now that I have a stable job, it has no value and I ended my premium account.

~~~
selllikesybok
Serious question - what convinced you to sign up for the premium in the first
place?

Job-seekers get like, 5 InMails and 3 useless search filters, plus some vanity
fluff that does nothing (who viewed your profile).

5 InMails may be worth the price in some cases, but I've always felt the
jobseeker service was somewhat predatory. That you found it worthwhile makes
me curious - am I missing something?

~~~
rubidium
I was brand new to the market, so had nearly zero connections. I followed the
"Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters" system.

A couple replies: \- Who viewed your profile was helpful. I'd send out a "cold
call" email to someone, and if they clicked through to my linkedin profile
then I knew they were interested. I'd then try to phone them as soon as they
saw my profile. It's surprisingly effective. \- The InMails were helpful. I
preferred to actually call or email over inmail, but in some cases there was
_no_ contact info for the person. In that case, InMail really was the only way
to contact someone, and I did get 2 nice contacts out of it.

------
jonathanehrlich
Just another reminder to never ever build your company for Wall street. In
2004, Netflix went from 40 to 2 in 6 months. Amazon from 89 to 5. There are
entirely zero competitors to Linkedin right now (FB is nowwhere in the space).
And while i agree the product has stagnated a bit - this in my view is another
example of Wall Street's insanity. (and no, i don't own any shares :)

~~~
refurb
No sure I understand. Wall Street had certain expectations of LinkedIn's
growth. That was reflected in the stock price.

 _I was incorrect. Q4 earnings were great, it was the fact that LinkedIn
released 2016 guidance that was far below market expectations._

[LinkedIn released their earnings and they were way below expectations, so the
stock took a massive hit.]

Does that seem unfair to you?

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Imagine if I bought "stock" in your job. I monitored your performance and set
expectations for your work. You fail to meet those expectations, so as the
majority shareholder of your job, I have you fired and replaced with someone
else. Or you underperform once and I use this threat every single review.

That's how Wall Street ruins good business.

~~~
gknoy
Or, worse, you have a Really Damn Good Year, but I ding you at your
performance review. Even though you were the best you've ever been, and better
than your peers, you weren't quite as good as I was hoping you to be, so ...
sorry, no raise this year.

~~~
frivoal
On the other hand, you got the raise at the point where I started hoping you'd
do great, even if you hadn't yet.

~~~
lmm
Maybe. It's really hard to set a fair baseline for a performance bonus; being
given stock options struck at the current price is a very similar exercise.

------
Inthenameofmine
Sounds like the bubble is bursting.

The established companies whose valuation was based on multiples of future
_growth_ are taking the hit, getting in line with more traditional multiples
of _current_ revenue.

~~~
tptacek
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=bubble%20burst&sort=byDate&pre...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=bubble%20burst&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false)

~~~
financedfuture
Instead of using an ignorant sarcasm, take a look at facts and formulate an
argument:

[http://etfdb.com/etfdb-category/technology-equities/](http://etfdb.com/etfdb-
category/technology-equities/)

[http://venturebeat.com/2016/01/18/there-are-
now-229-unicorn-...](http://venturebeat.com/2016/01/18/there-are-
now-229-unicorn-startups-with-175b-in-funding-and-1-3b-valuation/)

[http://www.bloomberg.com/research/sectorandindustry/industri...](http://www.bloomberg.com/research/sectorandindustry/industries/industrydetail.asp?code=4520)

[http://www.bloomberg.com/research/sectorandindustry/industri...](http://www.bloomberg.com/research/sectorandindustry/industries/industrydetail.asp?code=4510)

~~~
bduerst
The fact is that LinkedIn isn't a "Unicorn" startup, which is kind of their
point of the overuse of _tech bubble_.

------
jacquesm
Linkedin is a terrible company, I've always resisted making a profile there
because I think that to support a company like that in name is to give them a
free pass on their despicable behavior. No matter though, I still receive
their spam on a daily basis, but that's nothing a filter rule can't take care
of.

~~~
hardwaresofton
Some examples? I can't remember any big scandals...

~~~
dawhizkid
Really? They just settled a lawsuit for $13 million for spam:
[http://time.com/4062519/linkedn-spam-
settlement/](http://time.com/4062519/linkedn-spam-settlement/)

~~~
hnbrox
i almost wish they spammed me so i could get some free money. i don't get
hardly any mail from them.

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
You could only get money if you managed to get your address book stolen and
all your contacts spammed.

$10 is very little consolation for hundreds of people you know now thinking
that you are, ehrm, _not smart_ , for giving your address book to LinkedIn, or
worse, thinking you're a spammer because each of your contacts got _three_
annoying e-mails "from you" with no opt-out button.

If they had to pay even one dollar to each person they spammed, they'd
probably be bankrupt.

------
swingbridge
LinkedIn is full of people trying to get people to pay attention to them...
but the people they are trying to impress aren't really on LinkedIn (they have
a profile but that's it... they don't use it as an actual social platform).

In that sense LinkedIn is mostly a wasteland.

~~~
vlunkr
To me it looks like a wasteland of recruiters. I used to think it was neat
when some recruiter would contact me about a job, but now I realize they are
just spamming everyone with (your framework here) listed in their skills. The
over-saturation of recruiters, connections with everyone you even slightly
know, and people endorsing you for skills they don't know you have has made it
all meaningless.

~~~
gohrt
If you were an outsider in need of a job, you'd appreciate the recruiter spam.

~~~
vlunkr
But I don't feel like any of it is authentic. Submitting my resume directly to
the company would probably accomplish the same thing.

~~~
selllikesybok
In some cases, that might even be true.

------
mjmsmith
My real estate agent endorsed me for OCaml.

~~~
mrtron
Someone who didn't pay me for some outstanding invoices for contract php work
in 2002 just endorsed me for iOS dev. I haven't spoken to him since 2002.

------
joeax
I miss the old days of LinkedIn, when they had a Stack Overflow-esque Q&A
subsite, Groups were at the forefront of your feed, and it was the ideal forum
to hold discussions with like-minded professionals (i.e. other developers).

Today it seems like it's an endless stream of garbage posts, many from
recruiters (why did I connect with so many?), Groups is now relegated to the
background, buried away. Every few months they roll out an updated UI that
seems less intuitive. It all feels like a cheap imitation of Facebook,
underwhelming and having little value.

(P.S. Someone asked if they ever found a job on LI, I did, not from a
recruiter but a developer colleague. so there's still value there.)

------
HelloNurse
The idea that LinkedIn has enough market value to be able to lose $10B of it
makes me sad.

~~~
mrweasel
Yeah, I would like to see someone justify the market value of LinkedIn. They
seem to be losing money, and they have over 9000 employees (doing what
exactly?).

~~~
therein
Umm, did you read the earnings report? They are hardly losing money.

~~~
mrweasel
I might be reading the wrong, but they seem to have been losing money the
first three quarters of 2015:
[http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:LNKD&fstype=ii](http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:LNKD&fstype=ii)

They would need to make a pretty good profit the last three month of 2015 to
make up for it.

Again I might just not know how to read financial statements, but adding up
all the "Net incomes" gives you around $108 million in lose.

~~~
kgwgk
They have posted a small loss ($8mn) in the fourth quarter. But if you ignore
a number of costs you can easily convert a $166 million loss into a $373
million gain. See the last table in the press release:

[http://investors.linkedin.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=95...](http://investors.linkedin.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=953507)

------
BinaryIdiot
When I first joined LinkedIn I thought it was an amazing idea. But as I slowly
used it overtime I noticed almost every single person I know accepts EVERY
SINGLE request to connect and gives people skills that they never even had.
What's the point of that?

I had countless managers who've literally never looked at my code then vouched
on my LinkedIn profile that I was an expert in multiple technologies they
wouldn't even recognize if it was sitting in front of them.

So we have a network which, granted, still has utility but it's loaded with
spam, no way of really validating an identity, and everyone's connections have
been distilled into people who have sent them invites and nothing more. It's
such hit and miss trying to really network with people on there that I
typically login once every 6 months or so just so I can clear out my inbox.

Now if they turned LinkedIn into a more verified network with capabilities to
have more meaningful conversations and introductions I would be interested
again. Right now it's just a shitty clone of Facebook with job ads and
resumes.

------
jldugger
Not super surprising. The majority of their revenue comes from recruiters, and
I expect the majority of paying recruiters are in tech. So any downswing in
tech will be substantially felt. Especially for a firm whose earnings are
negative, losing growth is bound to be a problem.

On a related note, how much of Facebook's mobile revenue is for mobile apps?
Should we expect a similar decline as the economy declines further?

~~~
mc32
I'm sympathetic to your post, except the last bit. Where do you see the
[broad] economy declining, only sector I know declining is energy.

~~~
jldugger
I'm not clear if we're in good or bad shape. Exporters are in trouble: strong
dollar, failing overseas economies, etc. Declining S&P500, bonds prices
rising, etc.

Market prices are still overvalued, as well =( [http://www.multpl.com/shiller-
pe/](http://www.multpl.com/shiller-pe/)

IBM, Intel, HP, etc are all declining, as well as retailers like Wal-Mart.
Obviously the jobs report is welcome news, so maybe I just have an overly
pessimistic outlook.

------
aridiculous
A lot of LinkedIn hate, but no comment I've read acknowledges that LinkedIn
(in some fields, and growing) has replaced the resume.

It's almost a universal format — there's a lot of value in that. I can just
give someone this standard URL instead of creating some crazy word doc with
weird indentations.

~~~
umanwizard
That's ridiculous. I have literally never applied for a job where I could just
give a Linkedin link instead of using a resume or filling out a form.

~~~
dclowd9901
Seriously? Where do you live, out of curiosity?

~~~
TallGuyShort
My experience too with companies in SV and several other States. Even if they
accept a URL they insist on a file upload too. As an interviewer I like
LinkedIn's format. It's far easier to read and easy to click through to
previous employer's, recommenders, etc. compared to a resume.

------
mathattack
I'm not an expert, but LinkedIn doesn't seem that awful a company at $14
billion market cap, especially given the following:

\- The have $3 billion in cash [0]

\- They are cash-flow positive, and have a $3 billion run rate. (So taking the
cash out of the picture, their market cap is less than 4x revenue)

\- Many business people (high value customers) use them many times a day.

\- May people pay for the service. (I've paid as both a job-seeker and hiring
manager)

\- They have a stranglehold on executive search, with enormous pricing power.

\- They have done this on the back of a dated product, without much evolution.
This isn't the negative that it sounds like. It highlights their market
strength. (Bloomberg and Salesforce are similar examples)

While the lack of future growth may warrant a price drop, I think they're
taking a lot of heat for the industry as a whole. If they deserve a 40% drop,
many others deserve much worse.

[0]
[https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ALNKD&ei=oIa2VuGwD4WK...](https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ALNKD&ei=oIa2VuGwD4WKjALz75XACw)

------
dudul
LinkedIn is turning into such a mess.

There is no etiquette. Recruiters just spam random people for connections.
Users share stupid things that belongs on Facebook. Groups are almost
unusable. I'm not even getting into all the dark patterns to crawl users'
mailbox and contact list, deceiving "connect" links that actually invite a
person who is _not_ even on LinkedIn, etc.

I don't think I ever got a single job through LinkedIn.

------
mythz
Hoping to also receive 40% less spam from them too. LinkedIn's an ugly company
who's primary business model is social engineering and active exploitation of
their user base - sharing the bottom rung on the social ladder with recruiters
(aka Customers) and their widespread indiscriminate spam and phishing
attempts.

------
adajos
I'm going to endorse them for "Creating Value for Shareholders."

------
ngrilly
I'm not surprised. If LinkedIn disappears one day, will we miss it? I probably
won't.

As far as I'm concerned, LinkedIn's only purpose is to lookup a contact's name
and check his/her profile to learn a bit more before/after a first discussion.
I'd venture thinking that this could easily be replaced by static web pages
hosted anywhere, and some Google search.

Would you miss LinkedIn?

Edit: In the beginning, LinkedIn used to offer a fair deal to its users: you
spend time filling your profile, in return we host your profile for free and
for everyone to see (as your public and official resume on the web). But
LinkedIn changed this policy a few years ago and, since then, only members
close to you in terms of connection can see your profile. Others have to be
paying members. In my opinion, it was the beginning of the end for LinkedIn.

------
matt_wulfeck
Am I the only one that likes getting email from people who want to give me a
job? I use a separate email and filter the messages out of my inbox. I go in
there every week or so and see what's around. For recruiters I think are
genuine and are working on cool projects I just politely say I'm not interest
right now but feel free to reach out again later.

It's good to see there are people interested in my talents and want to give me
money to use them. LinkedIn allows all of that communication to flow from one
place.

~~~
city41
I always respond to thoughtful recruiters. The ones who look into me a little
bit and present a job that matches me in some way. They are always welcome and
appreciated.

But I've never once gotten that from a recruiter that contacted me through
LinkedIn. I'm surprised to hear you have. Recruiters from LinkedIn just spam
everyone they can get a hold of and see what sticks.

------
lando2319
Years ago after reading this I was so disgusted at LinkedIn I closed my
account.

They have a pay for placement scheme with both employees and employers. They
tell employers, "hey pay money and we'll give you top candidates", then serve
candidates who have themselves paid for placement.

[http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/ask-the-
headhunter-...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/ask-the-headhunter-
is-linkedin/)

~~~
chadwilken
I also deleted my account, they are the worst company that is almost required
in todays job market. I'm protesting it haha.

------
aabajian
"It projected full-year revenues at $3.6 billion to $3.65 billion, versus $3.9
billion expected."

Call me naive, but where has that $3.6 billion been going? I realize they just
released a new app (which is pretty nice), but that seems like an incredible
amount of money for a company whose main business is a cloud application.

~~~
askafriend
First of all they have multiple apps, and they have a ton of products that a
normal consumer-facing user just doesn't see. It sells to enterprise just as
much as it advertises to causal users of the website.

Ask a recruiter or a sales driven org and they'll tell you that LinkedIn is
invaluable for getting leads (through products tailored for this segment).

------
briandear
Here's an anecdote. My little company was spending roughly $10k per month on
PPC directed at mental health pros. Seems perfect for LinkedIn right? We
thought so too. So we ran, or attempted to run a bunch of adds regarding our
HIPAA compliant software. Unfortunately, LinkedIn's automatic system doesn't
allow all caps except for acronyms. In order to get the add past the automatic
gatekeeper, I had to use the highly amateur looking 'hipaa' which is
ridiculous when used with a professional, educated audience. Yet other
acronyms such as IRS or IT or even AMA would work just fine.

I emailed support, posted on their forum and still no action. Not even a
response until I posted a nasty recap in their public forum. The response:
"email support, this isn't appropriate for a public forum."

While frustrated with the inability of a 'professional' social network to
allow such a significant acronym (at least in the health world,) we persisted
in advertising.

However they still seem to have a manual ad approval process. So my ads got
stuck in approval purgatory time and time again -- often for days.

Then in an attempt to optimize cost given specific response rates, when I
adjusted my bids, the exact same ad had to be approved again -- taking at
minimum two days before the exact same ad would start running again. Change a
keyword? Reapproval. Change scheduling? Reapproval.

With Facebook and Google, all of this stuff can be done in near real-time
meaning we could adjust campaigns almost on the fly. While the FB and Google
interfaces can be daunting, they don't hold a candle to the crap that LinkedIn
calls ad service UX.

Needless to say, LinkedIn lost the entirety of our business, with Facebook
gaining the majority. Facebook also resulted in a massive conversion rate:
several percentage points different, which in the ad world, is massive.

I am one person and $10k per month isn't groundbreaking, however, it doesn't
surprise me that Facebook posted record earnings last quarter and LinkedIn
took a dive.

------
caogecym
No matter what you guys think, I found my current job, which I really enjoy so
far, through LinkedIn connection. It's still the most efficient professional
social tool I've used to land a job in market.

------
Bydisgn
Hey all, Steve Johnson here with LinkedIn. I’ve read through this thread and
wanted to make myself available for anybody that wanted to discuss some of the
product and design issues that have been raised. Please feel free to send me a
message via LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/esjohnson) or respond in this thread and
I’ll keep checking it. I look forward to the conversation, thanks much.

------
orf
To all the people with LinkedIn accounts who are complaining about the spam
and the dark patterns here's an idea: don't have a LinkedIn account. Simple.

I've never had one and never will. I've had a few contact requests but they go
right in the bin. From the number of calls/spam emails my coworkers receive
via LinkedIn it makes me wonder why people are on the site at all. Sure if you
want crappy low quality job offers from lazy recruiters then its good, but
otherwise...

------
lazyant
LinkedIn posts suck, just now I see somebody posted about a job that a friend
of mine could be interested in, I see no way to forward that or copy the link,
went to the poster's profile to see if it's there and I can send his profile's
link (not there), upon coming back the post doesn't show up anymore, Linkedin
deletes posts from view "randomly" (other posts are still there).

------
pnewman3
It's a crummy product. My homepage is filled with useless crap like word
puzzles and simple math equations, I'm inundated with with spam from
recruiters, and I get daily connection requests from people I don't know
without any explanation of why they want to reach out to me.

It _could_ be a useful network that helps me address professional needs, but
they seem to have no interest in building that.

------
jrcii
Over the years I've been either a freelance IT consultant or the head of an IT
consultancy. I never got a client from LinkedIn, no one that worked for me
ever got a client from LinkedIn, and more broadly, no one I know has ever got
a client from LinkedIn. I'm sure they have some purpose (public resume
database?) that I'm not clear on, but their value from my perspective is 0.

~~~
wyclif
I've never gotten a job from LinkedIn, though I'm connected to lots of people
I know IRL and have loads of IRL recommendations. Most of what I see is
generated by recruiters, even agency recruiters. I get loads of contact
requests from recruiters looking for a "rockstar"/"10x"/"ninja", and I ignore
all of them.

OTOH, I've gotten several jobs via Twitter. Anecdotal, but Twitter is a more
powerful business-oriented social media service if you're looking for a job.

------
overcast
Wonder how this guy feels with 5% of his families investments being in
LinkedIn
[http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/01/3-reasons-l...](http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/01/3-reasons-
linkedin-corp-stock-could-fall.aspx)

~~~
simonswords82
About 40% poorer I reckon.

~~~
skj
2% poorer?

~~~
simonswords82
In the context of all his wealth, yes. Most definitely 2% poorer.

------
giarc
Tableau down 50%.

HN Discussion here.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11042482](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11042482)

~~~
ngrilly
LinkedIn, Tableau, Atlassian: is there something going on today?

~~~
mortehu
It's earnings season.

[http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/earningsseason.asp](http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/earningsseason.asp)

------
typon
Good. Terrible website. Extremely over-valued.

------
cperciva
"erasing $10B of company's value"

No, not at all. $10B of the company's _valuation_ was erased, but the _value_
did not change at all.

------
corbett3000
The best possible long read article on the subject of what's happening in the
markets and from a global macro economic POV is here:
[http://seekingalpha.com/article/3860226-sell-stocks-risk-
ass...](http://seekingalpha.com/article/3860226-sell-stocks-risk-assets-buy-u-
s-treasuries-deflation-coming)

What we're seeing the the beginning of a massive deleveraging as excess debt
gets worked out of the system. It's possible that asset classes of all kinds
(including startup valuations, real estate, stocks etc.) are 30-50% above par
value. We'll see...

------
samfisher83
At a 20 billion valuation that still seems quite high. I think to justify the
valuation they would at some point need to generate $1.5-$2 billion in FCF and
at the current growth rate that isn't happening.

------
milin
"We are pleased to give you a free trial of Premium Job Seeker." Proceeds to
ask credit card info.

------
nevi-me
LinkedIn has had a recent trend of forcing a search result to their login
page. Maybe a new privacy setting that people switch on? Every time I come
across that page I discard what I was searching for, and move on.

I can no longer remember what it was about LinkedIn that made me delete my
account in the first place, maybe it's been long, but I've grown to strongly
dislike the whole thing. As others have commented, perhaps they're running out
of e-mail addresses to mine now.

------
inthewoods
Certainly a lot of hate for Linkedin here - curious, what would people like
Linkedin to become? Or what would it take for a new service to be interesting?
And given that people are unlikely to pay for a service like this means that
advertising and recruiter services are likely the only sources of revenue -
are you comfortable with that?

The opportunity I'm surprised Linkedin has not tackled is to create their own
CRM system. I think they are the only company that can really challenge
Salesforce.com. Imagine getting a CRM system and having everyone in already -
a marketing/sales dream. I imagine they thought of this, but may have said it
was beyond the pail as it may have driven users away. Interestingly, Hubspot's
CRM was offered with data.

To me, the most interesting part of the announcement was highlighted here:

[http://adage.com/article/digital/linkedin-shuts-ad-
network-1...](http://adage.com/article/digital/linkedin-shuts-ad-
network-12-months-opened/302559/)

They're shutting down their external ad network that they purchased when they
bought Bizo. Having tried this product, I'm not surprised - it was a piece of
sh*t.

------
laxatives
What does this mean for Connectifier, the company LinkedIn acquired hours
before markets closed yesterday (and before after-hours trading caused LNKD to
slide 40%)?

~~~
jalonso510
Depends on the term of the merger agreement. But if the price was paid in
stock and the exchange rate was fixed before today (which would be typical),
then yes, they would have taken a big hit too.

~~~
laxatives
As someone who previously worked for Connectifier, that's really unfortunate.
Hopefully LNKD recovers...

------
wolframarnold
I think that's spot on.

Real Estate: The core Bay Area cities, the pinnacle of which is San Francisco,
have not seen substantial real estate slumps in either recession in recent
memory (the dot com bust and the mortgage bubble). For outlying areas, like
Antioch, the picture was pretty ugly, however. Location matters.

Tech jobs: As someone who joined the Bay Area tech workforce in February 2000,
just a few months before the market peaked, my observation has been exactly
what you describe: * employed people won't see their salaries drop much, they
might even see slight increases * some perks will be cut * income from equity
packages will be much lower * there will be some layoffs at established
companies * some startups will go bust, others will see their valuation drop
and fundraising will be a lot harder * there will be fewer tech people
employed overall * new arrivals in the job market (eg new grads) will have a
harder time and see substantially lower starting salaries compared to their
peers just a year prior. Timing matters.

------
microcolonel
I like LinkedIn, it helps me get in contact with hiring managers and gives me
a platform to say nice things about my colleagues.

I also prefer it to résumés for getting an idea of who I'm working with.

I don't like that it tries to trick me into doing things I don't want to do. I
hate to think that people might be sent unsolicited email just because _I_
decided to interact with it.

I honestly think that they should stop trying to be a social network, and
instead: perfect the résumé; help people find talent without having to resort
to shotgun InMails; discourage boasting in the unstructured parts of the
profiles (Summary specifically).

I think that if they fire some people and chop off a few limbs, they could
emerge a company that people actually respect.

------
runT1ME
Anecdotal, but I've gotten more legitimate job leads from my Twitter account
than I have from my LinkedIn account. At least it's Engineering Managers or
other Lead Engineers inviting me to interview on Twitter, I only see
recruiters on LinkedIn.

------
Yhippa
LinkedIn reminds me of an online dating site. You're only on there long enough
to get what you want. When you've finally gotten it you stop using it until
you need to get it again.

~~~
selllikesybok
How is that different from Amazon?

------
juandazapata
I can't say that I feel bad for such a sketchy company. Even after I deleted
my LinkedIn account, they kept spamming on a daily basis. Then I just added
the domain to the spam filter.

------
ileshem
The story behind the collapse of LinkedIn is not yet public, here you go:
[https://goo.gl/EE5h6Y](https://goo.gl/EE5h6Y)

------
Taylor_OD
_request_

I use a Chrome extension that removed the ability to see the news feed on
facebook called News Feed Eradicator.

Since installing it I've saved a lot of time because I can still use Facebook
messages and view groups that I am a part of but I don't get caught in the
mindless scrolling trap.

I would pay for a similar extension for linkedin. I have to use linkedin for
work but I find myself scrolling mindlessly way too often. Does anyone have
the ability to put something like that together?

~~~
noir_lord
Just add the classes/ID's to your adblock filters (very easy with ublock
origin since you can just click the element and view the tree to find the
element to nuke).

Done that on all newspapers and youtube to block comments, they hardly ever
add anything.

~~~
tim333
Yeah

! [https://www.linkedin.com/](https://www.linkedin.com/)
www.linkedin.com###ozfeed

does it for me (click the name at the top in uBlock Origin to open the
dashboard, stick that line in 'My Filters')

~~~
Taylor_OD
Thank you!

------
xirdstl
I never put a lot of value in the data on LinkedIn.

Where else can I get "endorsements" for random technology keywords like SOA
from people who cannot possibly know what SOA means?

~~~
CaptSpify
I really want to see the code for how that works. My great aunt did not
endorse me for python, because she has no clue what that is. I'm curious if
they trick people into clicking that? or if they just purely make it up.

~~~
Riod
They send emails to your contacts/dig through your email list to find people
you know and ask them to endorse you for xyz skills through one click. Your
great aunt was probably thinking she did you a solid. Scummy by the company.

------
cprayingmantis
And they said I was a fool to short it a couple of weeks ago.

------
forrestbrazeal
For me, LinkedIn jumped the shark when they started sending me birthday
notifications for my contacts.

Explain to me how that belongs in a business network?

------
nrclark
Every time I see something like this, I have to wonder -

Did anybody actually _lose_ anything? It's not like LinkedIn is more or less
intrinsically valuable than it was yesterday. The only thing that's happened
is that their baseball cards dropped in resale value.

Anybody who thinks a non-dividend non-voting stock is anything other than a
baseball card is kidding themselves.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Employees whose compensation included stock units (if that's a thing at
LinkedIn and I assume it is given the industry) certainly lost something.

If Google's stuck took a hit like that I'd be out a significant part of my
compensation.

~~~
nrclark
Is there any truth to the 'you can't lose something you never actually had'
idea?

When LI's stock price dropped, it's not like somebody showed up and plundered
the shareholders' bank accounts. It's never safe to treat stocks like money.

------
ommunist
Hopefully, when they close the site, our personal data will not be given to
the third party. Or... what was in that small script?

------
xlayn
First Twitter, and now Linked In. I've called unicorns and specially those
without business model a bubble.

What we are looking is a shift...

    
    
      -Happened from real state to oil
      -Oil to IT unicorns
      

Now the question is where is the money being transferred to? I'm still
wondering how has Facebook done to avoid all this happening to them.

~~~
chadzawistowski
I don't interpret this shift as money being transferred anywhere, so much as a
systematic de-leveraging of investments.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deleveraging](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deleveraging)

------
tedmiston
I'll go in for a few shares. Most adjusted analyst price targets are in the
neighborhood of $180. Anyone else buy?

------
airbreather
I can't believe they are worth even a tenth of current price - they have added
no value to my career and for some time have just been annoying. It really
started going backwards with the endorsements - there is no validation of the
competency of the endorser to endorse you, so it is totally pointless.

------
srisaila
I have always considered LinkedIn a spammer.

------
glasz
no value was destroyed. it didn't exist in the first place.

------
doppp
Well, since everyone's bearish on the markets, predicting widespread
unemployment for all, doesn't this mean that people will be back on LNKD
looking for jobs and such? This could only mean good things for LNKD no?
Sounds pretty recession-proof to me.

------
drac89
"Apple is like a ship with a hole in the bottom, leaking water and my job is
to get the ship pointed in the right direction." \- Gil Amelio

Seems similar for Linkedin but I don't think they will be able to find a
"Steve Jobs" kind of strategy.

------
eternalban
Just a friendly hint for resident Smarty pants young things:

 _This is it_. Competition in the field is (intellectually, conceptually,
practically) ground level ho hum regardless of names/numbers. Be fearless.
Think Uber for people.

('it' being the next google scale market).

~~~
selllikesybok
If the trend continues, though, I'll get my flying car first.

------
ilostmykeys
A bunch of "well meaning" super wealthy, corrupt individuals can manipulate
the world economy as a show of power to Presidential candidates they don't
already have in their pocket but soon may...

I like conspiracy theories and I cannot lie...

bleepin' hell

------
jasonlaramburu
LinkedIN's utility is really negligible now. It's become a constant stream of
spammers trying to sell software engineering or recruiting services. Virtually
everyone who is on LinkedIN is also on Facebook, twitter etc.

------
arbuge
From the advertising standpoint, it seems to me that Facebook has a database
of people's job titles which is almost as good as LinkedIn's, without
requiring advertisers to pay a minimum $2.00 per click to reach them.

~~~
notliketherest
From our experience targeting job titles, LinkedIn is actually much more
comprehensive than Facebook. ie targeting "Operations Directors at Company X".
Facebook doesn't provide that level of granularity, and our audience sizes are
much bigger on LinkedIn.

~~~
arbuge
Interesting. Do you find $2+ cpcs justifiable? Can you really get a good ROI
with that?

~~~
notliketherest
A 50k month reoccurring revenue from a lead sourced via a $2cpc is justifiable
yeah

------
tosseraccount
Makes you wonder how private social media company valuations are doing.

------
mcs_
Well, can happen if you want thousands of unknown people that do not use a
copy of your products, to decide what to do with share value.

Is it statistically a good idea be a public company?

------
pacomerh
Linkedin needs a really good competitor, this service can honestly be improved
in every way. Not to mention user experience at profile level.

------
ottomannen
Seems to be a lot of hating on LinkedIn today. I think it's a great site to
use for your business contacts. Way better than collecting business cards.

~~~
gergles
Hater News really really really realllllllllly hates LinkedIn, this is pretty
light compared to normal 2 minutes' hate on LinkedIn posts.

------
joelthelion
I just don't understand why they don't manage to bring more value with the
wealth of data they. It seems like there is so much they could do...

------
reviseddamage
and the vultures are showing up looking for a carcass
[http://www.marketwatch.com/story/shareholder-alert-levi-
kors...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/shareholder-alert-levi-korsinsky-
llp-announces-an-investigation-involving-possible-violations-of-federal-
securities-laws-by-the-board-of-linkedin-corporation-2016-02-05)

------
rongenre
This could be symbolic, given that LNKD's IPO was one of the first big events
of the current boom. Opened at $119 I think.

------
jMyles
Whether or not it's a correct assessment, I think it's crazy to suggest that
the Facebook At Work announcement isn't a huge factor here.

But look: at the end of the day, LinkedIn is _awful_. It's a thinly veiled
spam marketing scheme. So the fact that it lost $10B of value seems bizarre
only because LinkedIn already seemed worthless.

I have also been off of Facebook for a couple of years now. Not sure what, if
any, social networking platform to adopt.

------
bwb
What are your favorite parts of linkedin? what do you want them to be doing
better that they are not?

------
jorgecurio
anyone delete their linkedin? I just got sick of strangers adding me and
messaging me but I also found out my ex-boss who I had a great deal of respect
for unfriended me on linkedin and lets just say he needs to worry about
another competitor SaaS soon.

~~~
tdkl
Yes, I believe a hosted personal site is better, since it's also under my
control. Anyone can search your name online and get that as a top hit.

You can delete LinkedIn, but if your profile was public, good luck getting all
the data scrapers to remove your data as well.

------
jack9
LI having less value than a wild valuation is not a surprise to me. It is
still overvalued.

------
sidcool
LinkedIn never made sense to me with their premium model. It was a bold idea
though.

------
jonah
Ouch, I just feel bad for my friends and all the others who work at Lynda.com.

------
perseusprime11
+1 for not focusing on users

------
hodder
Also known as 1 $TWTR down.

------
klunger
So... good time to buy?

------
pteredactyl
We all know Nasdaq has been a bit inflated...

------
srisaila
I have always considered LinkedIn a spammer!

------
beambot
You know how people say, "No press is bad press." This is the counterexample.
I feel really bad for everyone at LinkedIn today.

------
crudbug
The whole market is inflated with VCs & wall street pricing models. Ultimately
the public pays the price of all this.

------
danielrakh
That's roughly the market cap of Twitter. Let that sink in...

~~~
SwellJoe
But, I _like_ Twitter. I think LinkedIn has plenty of room to fall farther.

------
jamisteven
Along with dozens of other companies who's stock is down.

------
jjuhl
Who cares?

------
ageofwant
And nothing of value was lost.

------
ChuckMcM
Startup CEOs are getting pretty young these days, has your niece been hitting
you up for a seed round?

I'm thinking an App that is Uber for Lemonade Stands, people in the
neighborhood just press the "I'm thirsty" button and one of her "mixologists"
nearby makes a lemonade and brings it by. She doesn't make the lemonade or
sell it, she is all about connecting thirsty people to industrious people who
are putting their otherwise unused lemons to work.

~~~
kbenson
I would be interested in seeing how this plays out, considering cops
occasionally shut down lemonade stands for not having permits[1]. This was not
an isolated incident[2].

1: [http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/11/politics/lemonade-stand-
shut-d...](http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/11/politics/lemonade-stand-shut-down-
texas/)

2: [http://www.lemonadefreedom.com/category/selling-lemonade-
is-...](http://www.lemonadefreedom.com/category/selling-lemonade-is-not-a-
crime/)

~~~
Spooky23
That's ok, the mixologists would be independent lemonade service providers
using their own lemons.

As independent contractors, they would certainly be responsible for compliance
with all lemonade regulation.

------
dangerpowpow
wow, it is literally crashing

------
darkhorn
Because of Facebook Work I think.

[https://work.fb.com/](https://work.fb.com/)

~~~
sumitgt
I don't think Facebook for work competes with LinkedIn's core business at all.
It's a different product.

~~~
darkhorn
What is the difference?

~~~
chaostheory
FB for Work looks like a competitor for Yammer i.e. an internal social network
for companies offering internal communication with notes, status updates,
etc...

