Liz Gannes

Recent Posts by Liz Gannes

Reid Hoffman and Jeff Weiner on LinkedIn, Perhaps the Only Even-Keeled Consumer Internet Company

Asa Mathat / AllThingsD.com

Controversy and histrionics are not what you’ll get in a conversation with LinkedIn’s CEO Jeff Weiner and Chairman Reid Hoffman.

Instead, the two — whose company is the best-performing tech IPO in recent memory — laid out a vision of “making every professional more effective” in an interview with Kara Swisher at D10.

Other LinkedIn mission statements Weiner and Hoffman suggested as they were asked to define where the company came from and where it’s going:

  • Connecting talent to opportunity at massive scale
  • LinkedIn is not about passing time; it’s about enabling members and their productivity
  • A platform for professionals to navigate work life
  • The business of helping companies hire, market and sell
  • Our first value is “members first”

Weiner said LinkedIn’s current goals include simplification of its products — a la recent development on the company’s mobile apps — growth and localization, and development of monetization products.

He did sound a bit too much like a business-school textbook at times, with statements like, “And lastly, we want to invest in everyday value propositions.”

But Weiner and Hoffman proved they have a sense of humor by bringing a hilarious parody video to show at the conference, that was — surprise! — also about LinkedIn brand statements. (We’ll post it later.)

For instance: “With LinkedIn, growing your network is as easy as sliding down the rainbow to Kittentown!”

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To many investors, visionary entrepreneurs come off as naïve or worse — isn’t it safer/easier/more profitable to create a(nother) social network for cat fanciers than to try to cure cancer, defeat terrorism, or organize the world’s information?

— Bruce Gibney, in a post on the Founders Fund Web site entitled “What Happened to the Future?”