LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value • Hacker News Board

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

#311

Post by p4wnc6 » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 8:50 PM UTC

dantillberg wrote: post #23

jacquesm wrote: post #9

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.

After quitting my full-time job and going independent(ish, for now) last year, I've sometimes regretted deleting my LinkedIn profile, as it's so commonly used for networking and searching for leads for job candidates. But I agree with you that it's a terrible, and it's why I deleted my profile. I didn't even know how creepy/skeevy their business model is then, but what I did see was that their product is just BAD in…

I've literally never experienced any negative repercussions from not having a LinkedIn account. I deleted it years ago and switched jobs twice since. In all of my applications or interviews, I just say that I dislike the way LinkedIn captures personal data and everyone understands and doesn't care. I also offer to share my Stack Overflow Careers page with them and they are perfectly happy with it, in fact some have even commented about how much more useful that is.

I really don't understand what value regular users are getting (let alone people paying for Premium). Part of me believes people will realize this and delete accounts en masse, but then I remember how status obsessed everyone is and I have my doubts. LinkedIn is sort of like Zynga for career status, so I suspect there is a lot of user psychology they can manipulate.

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

#312

Post by pyrrhotech » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 8:50 PM UTC

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.

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

#313

Post by vadym909 » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 8:54 PM UTC

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #237

uremog wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear Jamba Juice is seriously lobbying against these "rogue juicers".

Nothing against the kids, but they need to play by the established rules; not undercut established juice franchisees who've invested considerable funds to purchase local franchise rights.

Well then the Govt ought to update their outdated rules. The kids are just meeting a market need and love choosing their hours and being solopreneurs.

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

#314

Post by jloughry » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 8:54 PM UTC

Tepix wrote: post #143

resu_nimda wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thei…

Exactly. If it's 5 minutes per 1 billion customers, 5 billion minutes wasted. That's 9512 years. 135 lives.

> 1 billion customers...135 lives

That's close to the proportional death rate from air travel accidents (3.6 billion passengers/year, around 500 deaths).

Facebook takes---in Fermi numbers---about as many lives as plane crashes.

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

#315

Post by kuschku » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 8:55 PM UTC

pyrrhotech wrote: post #312

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 m…

It’s probably even a too optimistic forecast.

The readjustment of the market to reality is going to be a big issue, especially when one looks at just how many companies are operating at huge losses. Most people already know that it can’t continue like this.

The good thing is, real estate values will decrease like the pay, so people can rent at cheaper rates in the bay areas.

The bad thing is, those who have bought a house are f~~~~~d.

We’ll probably see a lot of tech giants like Twitter (no income? really?) tumble, and others take a small hit (like Google).

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

#316

Post by amyjess » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 8:56 PM UTC

suprgeek wrote: post #179

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…

It depends on how strong your sense of schadenfreude is.

If you really, really want the scummy behavior to stop, and you just really get off on seeing them crash and burn, your best hope is that they'll fall so hard and so fast that their "even more aggressive at monetization" phase lasts less than a year until the bottom falls out and they get acquihired by Google or Facebook or someone, and then they turn the servers off as soon as the deal closes.

Of course, the worst case scenario is that instead of an acquihire, they get swallowed a private equity firm who auctions off all their data piecemeal to all kinds of nefarious parties...

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

#317

Post by nashashmi » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 8:56 PM UTC

pyrrhotech wrote: post #312

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 m…

I am getting giddy at the opportunity to making dumb stupid money again. It will be like 2008 with 30% returns per month. Oh how I miss those days!

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

#318

Post by turbohz » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 8:58 PM UTC

suprgeek wrote: post #179

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…

I'n not in LinkedIn, so...

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

#319

Post by brianbreslin » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 9:02 PM UTC

uremog wrote: post #229

ChuckMcM wrote: post #155

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…

I hear Jamba Juice is seriously lobbying against these "rogue juicers".

Completely unrelated: I saw a "mini" Jamba Juice in a 7-11 store the other day. It was just a slushie machine filled with their smoothies.

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

#320

Post by briandear » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 9:03 PM UTC

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.