How Linkedin becomes so successful

LinkedIn was founded on December 28, 2002, by a group of 10 entrepreneurs headed by Reid Hoffman who became the company's first CEO the site officially launched May 5th, 2003 LinkedIn is categorized as a social media site and its primary use is professional networking employers can also post jobs on the site and job seekers can post their CVS and there are many other functionalities of the site as well the site has steadily grown from just a few thousand members to hundreds of millions of users today in almost every country around the world it gained more than 103 million dollars in investments in its first eight years of operation the site is available in more than 24 languages and about 60% of its users live in the United States it's one of the most popular web sites in the world and it's one of the most prominent social networks dedicated to professional rather than personal lives. Microsoft went on to purchase LinkedIn and a multi-billion dollar deal back in 2016 we want to learn some more about Linkedin history - facts, because it's an innovative site with unique functionalities that can elevate people's careers and help them to become more successful in their professional lives LinkedIn, has become a hugely influential networking site and has been a success story since its launch.

1. It was founded by members of the PayPal mafia

After PayPal was purchased by eBay back in 2002 all but 12 of the original 50 employees ended up leaving the company but a number of these former employees work together to found other companies after leaving these former PayPal employees made such a significant impression on the business world afterward they became known as the PayPal mafia they were the product of PayPal's distinct culture which encouraged camaraderie amongst employees ten of the PayPal mafia members work together to create LinkedIn shortly after quitting PayPal.

2. The site has more than 500 million members

In its first month of operation back in 2003 LinkedIn gained just 4,500 members but by the end of the year, it had 500,000 they passed the 1 million user mark back in April of 2004 and their 10 millionth user joined in April 2007 by 2016 the site had 433 million users with 106 million unique monthly visitors and a new visitor joining every two seconds as of April 2017 the site has 500 million members located in almost every country around the world.

3. The site was launched in stealth mode

When LinkedIn launched in 2003 very few people knew about it but that was by design co-founder Reid Hoffman did not want publicity because he knew it would make some adjustments and feedback to get the site working smoothly still some journalists and vloggers did write about the new site but the reviews were largely negative the criticisms revolved around the fact that the site separated the personal from the professional many thought it was dull not very social and had too many privacy settings Hoffman was not happy with these reviews made a habit of taking actual LinkedIn users out to lunch so he could find out just exactly what was working and what still needed to be improved.

4. LinkedIn reached profitability in 2007

In the beginning, all of the services on LinkedIn were free like many tech startups profitability was not in the immediate goals the focus was put on growth Hoffman paid for all expenses himself in the initial stages leading to the launch of the website it looked like the company may be profitable starting in 2006 but at the end of the fiscal year they were six hundred and seventy-seven thousand dollars in the red their first year of actual profitability was in 2007 with a profit of a mere three hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars from revenues of about thirty-two million dollars in 2010 their profit was more than ten million dollars in 2012 the company's net income was twenty-six million dollars however the net revenue is by no means steady in fact in 2015 LinkedIn had a 166 million dollar loss until the recent acquisition by Microsoft profit remained a secondary goal with the primary goal being growth.

5. Co-founder and executive chairman Reed Hoffman has a net worth of 3.3 billion dollars

Before co-founding LinkedIn and becoming the company's executive chairman Reed Hoffman was already an incredibly successful businessman he worked for Apple computers and Fujitsu before starting his own company called social net in 1997 social net was an online dating web site and some considered it to be the very first social network although it didn't succeed partially because it was an idea ahead of its time then he helped to found PayPal and became the company's CEO Oh in 2000 after PayPal was purchased by eBay in 2002 Hoffman and a few other founding members of PayPal helped to create LinkedIn and Hoffman became the executive chairman with all of his business success and some amazing investments like getting in early on Facebook Hoffman has accumulated a total net worth of 3.3 billion dollars.

6. Their market cap fell $11 billion in one day back in 2016 On February 5th, 2016

LinkedIn experienced the single largest drop in value in the company's history the stock price fell 44% and each shares price fell by more than $80 this was largely a result of a disappointing profit outlook and there was a quick reaction when several analysts downgraded the stock price was the lowest it had been in years losing more than 11 billion dollars in valuation in a single day which is more than Twitter's entire market cap at the time.

7. 117 million stolen LinkedIn passwords and usernames were put up for sale in 2016

Back in 2012, LinkedIn was hacked but the scope of the hack wasn't known until 2016 when up to 117 million LinkedIn usernames and passwords surfaced in an illegal marketplace originally they thought only 6 million profiles had been effective the stolen login credentials were listed for sale for 5 bitcoins which were worth a total of 2,200 dollars at the time LinkedIn contacted all of their affected users and increased their security measures in response.

8. They had to pay a 13 million dollar settlement for spamming potential users

In 2016 a13 million dollar settlement was approved for a class-action lawsuit brought against LinkedIn the basis lawsuit was that LinkedIn was spamming potential users with a large number of emails about its services without having gained consent when the users of the site imported their contacts LinkedIn would email these potential users several times with invitations to join the site but it was determined they did not have the authority to do so LinkedIn was ordered to pay the 13 million dollar settlement which was one of the largest settlements ever in the area of digital privacy. 

9. Their second CEO was hired through LinkedIn

In 2006 the original CEO Reid Hoffman made the decision to step down so he could focus on developing more applications to improve the site he used LinkedIn to find his replacement selecting dan Knight who was an executive manager at event software at the time after identifying Dan on LinkedIn he was interviewed and hand hired and the company grew from nine million to 35 million users and sales increased 900 percent during his tenure even though he was only the CEO for the company for two years.

10. CEO Jeff Weiner sold his Silicon Valley estate for 10 million dollars in 2018

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner purchased a mansion in Menlo Park California in the heart of Silicon Valley for 5.3 million dollars back in 2010 just two years after becoming the CEO in 2018 he sold the home for around 10 million dollars the 7,200 square foot home has 5 bedrooms nine bathrooms an art studio a pool a craft room and a playground Jeff Fleener lived close to some of the most successful tech companies in history.

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