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LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value

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Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value

#91
post #55

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…

The potential usefulness of LinkedIn only adds to the disappointment and resentment. It is sometimes useful. It could be good. Why does it have to be so intrusive and underhanded that I won't let the app on my phone?

Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value

#92

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 :)

The other way to look at it is that the shares were vastly overvalued to begin with, and the latest financial statement has caused investors to overvalue them by a bit less.

I still think the value is insane, but the insanity is in the opposite direction to you :)

Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value

#94
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Mom asked me if I was recently on LinkedIn. Apparently they emailed her after I made some new connections. I turned off all email notifications and despise the fact that they email my contacts about my activity.

Just curious - why did you give them your contacts? I've been on it for years and have never uploaded a single contact. I've just manually connected with people I know. Whenever a service asks for my contacts, I know it's because they want to spam them.

Many people are literally tricked into uploading their contacts. Example with screenshots.[1] The UI/UX practice is called "dark patterns".

On a monthly basis, I get LinkedIn "invites" from friends who simply didn't understand LinkedIn's hostile and deceptive user interface. They think they're just importing their contacts to conveniently++ find existing profiles but in reality, they're unwittingly giving permission to LinkenIn to spam their address book to recruit new members.

You may be good at defensive web surfing to keep your contacts private but most others are not.

Btw, there was a previous discussion from Feb 2014 about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7276032

[1]https://medium.com/@danrschlosser/linkedin-dark-patterns-3ae...

++ (understandably because they don't want to manually retype each contact name into Linkedin. Ain't nobody got time for that.)

Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value

#95
post #55

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…

It does have a lot of value. My partner found some awesome contractors by doing searches on LinkedIn for the relevant keywords (it helped that they were unknown technologies with less than a dozen profiles listing them)

Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value

#97
post #55

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…

I too (as a freelancer) find quite a bit of value out of LinkedIn, but that's orthogonal to the fact that they are a scummy company with even lower ethical standards than Facebook. That they don't have a rivaling alternative to provide competition only adds to the tragedy.

Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value

#98

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.

Really depends on the industry and position.

Mid-level executives in IT/Tech/Consulting globally are practically on LinkedIn, it is a giant job board. A self-updating and self-cleaning CV database and rolodex.

The biggest CRM system on earth. And it has gotten better recently, the product team has given up on moving into Twitter/Facebook crap features and is re-focusing on the job at hand.

If they'd add hierarchies and reporting structures, they'd be even more valuable (and dangerous). B2B sales people live in LinkedIn. HR ditto.

Yes, developers don't get the value - but it is not for you. Directors, VPs, MBAs,...more so.

Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value

#99

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 :)

In Europe, xing is actually more popular than linkedin. So there is serious competition.

Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value

#100
post #11

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.

The bubble has been bursting in the last few years (according to commenters) but the overall stocks/valuations were going up.

And then they fall 40% in a single day. That's why it's called "bursting"
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