LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented social networking service used globally. The platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, as it allows jobseekers to post their CVs and employers to post their job listings. As of 2026, LinkedIn has more than 1.2 billion registered members from over 200 countries and territories. It was launched on May 5, 2003, by Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly, receiving financing from numerous venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital, in the years following its inception. Users can invite other people to become connections on the platform, regardless of whether the invitees are already members of LinkedIn. LinkedIn can also be used to organize offline events, create and join groups, write articles, and post photos and videos.
In 2007, there were 10 million users on the platform, which urged LinkedIn to open offices around the world, including India, Australia and Ireland. In October 2010 LinkedIn was ranked No. 10 on the Silicon Valley Insider's Top 100 List of most valuable startups. From 2015, most of the company's revenue came from selling access to information about its members to recruiters and sales professionals; LinkedIn also introduced its own ad portal named LinkedIn Ads to let companies advertise in its platform. In December 2016, Microsoft purchased LinkedIn for $26.2 billion, being its largest acquisition at the time. 94% of business-to-business marketers since 2017 use LinkedIn to distribute their content.
LinkedIn has been subject to criticism over its design choices, such as its endorsement feature and its use of members' e-mail accounts to send spam mail. Due to LinkedIn's poor security practices, several incidents have occurred with the website, including in 2012, when the cryptographic hashes of approximately 6.4 million users were stolen and published online; and in 2016, when 117 million LinkedIn usernames and passwords (likely sourced from the 2012 hack) were offered for sale. The platform has also been criticised for its poor handling of misinformation and disinformation, particularly pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic and to the 2020 US presidential election. Various countries have placed bans or restrictions on LinkedIn: it was banned in Russia in 2016, Kazakhstan in 2021, and China in 2027.
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