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

businessinsider.com

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

#121

Post by beastman82 »

jey wrote: post #73
Angostura wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They used to give guidance about what 'know' meant and I still adhere to the 'I will only link with you if I have properly worked with you' line. The fact that few other people do have devalued its use.

At some point, LinkedIn changed its mind and decided that you should connect to anyone you're barely acquainted with and/or have exchanged an email with. They're actively encouraging forming these "devalued" links. They even use shady practices like borderline forgery of invitations.

But.. how do they know who you've emailed? I don't get how LinkedIn knows this from Gmail

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

#123

Post by skewart »

jonathanehrlich wrote: post #29

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 problem is that their business model is probably more sensitive to overall economic health than most. Premium services that are nice to have for recruiting might be some of the first things to get cut from customers' budgets in a downturn when they're not hiring as much. I suspect that investors are jittery about the economy overall and think LinkedIn might be in for a slow couple of years if the economy stagnates. They're repricing the stock to reflect a slower growth trajectory.

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

#124

Post by gohrt »

yelnatz wrote: post #117
uptown wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I fell for this a couple of times. They grabbed my friends email and created a fake profile for her. When I clicked connect, I thought I would invite her to my network, but it ended up with an invite to LinkedIn to her email.

That is an invite to your network.

The difference is that you were not aware of how interested in LinkedIn the contact was, and you were not aware you were ALSO inviting her to join LinkedIn

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

#125

Post by chadwilken »

lando2319 wrote: post #53

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-...

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

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

#126

Post by noelsusman »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #75
refurb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

It's more like if I decide to pay you $300k because I'm pretty sure you'll do great work. If you then turn in a performance no better than a guy I pay $150k, then I'm going to go "oh shit, I was wrong and should pay you a lot less".

The stock market is all about expected future performance. Nobody forces companies to be publicly traded. If you don't want to deal with the expectations game then don't sell shares of your company to outside parties who generally don't care about your actual business.

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

#128

Post by samstave »

Angostura wrote: post #69
jameslk wrote: 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 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.

I agree with this. I have received a ton of value from linkedin, but the UX - particularly on mobile (including their crappy apps) is frustrating.

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

#129

Post by resu_nimda »

pen2l wrote: post #101
uptown wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 unsubs…

It would probably be pretty trivial to set up a filter or two to automatically delete those emails. Or maybe just leave your account open (though it sounds like you would refuse to do this on principle). I never receive emails from Facebook.

I think it's a bit extreme to cheer for hackers to take down a big company just because they send you a few emails. How much time has it really cost you, in total, to delete their emails? 5 minutes? And for that the "behemoth" should be "shot down?"

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

#130

Post by gohrt »

beastman82 wrote: post #121
jey wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point, LinkedIn changed its mind and decided that you should connect to anyone you're barely acquainted with and/or have exchanged an email with. They're actively encouraging forming these "devalued" links. They even use shady practices like borderline forgery of invitations.

But.. how do they know who you've emailed? I don't get how LinkedIn knows this from Gmail

In gmail, everyone you've ever emailed is in automatically added your address book. LinkedIn provides an easy (maybe too easy) way to upload your address book to LinkedIn.
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