Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B - <AUTHOR> http://news.microsoft.com/2016/06/13/microsoft-to-acquire-linkedin/#sm.0000pigrxf7dne36z7o2gp4nrghse <comment><USER2> Great move. IMO this is Microsoft making a play for HR managed services -- look for them to sign a big deal with ADP / BenefitsExpress / buy someone like Zenefits to complement this purchase. The power and value of LinkedIn is as a recruiting platform; and recruiting is a big-money problem that's only getting worse. If they can turn LinkedIn into a benefits management platform, that would be a huge win for Microsoft and likely resonate with employees as well -- while giving Microsoft de-facto ownership of the supply chain for knowledge workers.

Microsoft is a traditional B2B company; they make boring enterprise software and sell it through traditional resellers. As more and more core business functions (like HR managed services) start being sold through these channels, it makes more and more sense for Microsoft to get into it. More importantly, Microsoft already has a sales relationship with nearly every company in the world -- and they can now cram a high-margin talent acquisition / management product down that sales pipe as well.

IMO this is one of those acquisitions that wouldn't have made sense for Apple, Google or Facebook -- their customer base is too consumer-centric. But given Microsoft's heavy enterprise sales base, it absolutely makes sense for them. Nadella has finally gotten Microsoft to realize it's not really competing with Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook -- its real competition is Oracle, Salesforce and IBM. Viewed through that lens, this is a great purchase.

<comment><USER3> This would be _great_ , if you're right, because this is how we get to a place where we maintain our resumé in one place (LinkedIn) and don't have to play the whole "Please upload your resumé. Now please enter in all the details of your resumé." hellhole.

<comment><USER4> There is a Fortune 200 headquartered in my area that, by far, has the worst application process and software I've ever seen. Aside from REQUIRING you to type in information like your high school's address and your high school GPA, they also have pre-screening booby-traps which you may need to lie to get past (e.g. my wife was applying for an HR job there and they asked if she had a bachelor's degree in HR, which she didn't, she has a JD and has worked in HR for years and she was filtered out of the applicant pool because of that). One of the last pieces of the process is answering a few long-form answers on why you'd be a good fit. They have four or five questions but the gotcha is if you lose focus on the textfield and have to click it again, it erases your answer.

<comment><USER5> Great story. It's a sure sign that a strong bureaucracy has set in when one sees this. It's common in government organizations, but becoming more common in non-government (especially large) organizations.

<comment><USER6> _becoming more common in non-government (especially large) organizations._

Been like that for awhile. You're just getting to know more of the vast ocean of all the bureaucratic mindset that is out there.

<comment><USER5> I think it's a strategy by "those in power" to tightly control who gets hired. They make the application process so bad that people with options opt out of applying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm surprised by the amount of negativity about the deal here on HN. It seems like an excellent match. I could see LinkedIn as an asset for Microsoft anywhere in the realms of work collaboration and HR. No other social network besides LinkedIn comes close to complimenting MicroSoft's wheelhouse of enterprise utility.

<comment><USER8> It think the negativity is mostly due to the price tag. If I was a shareholder I would be furious over Microsoft paying $26billion for a money losing company. Even if Microsoft see some potential the rest of us aren't, and we have to assume that they are, they still need to find a way to turn a profit on the deal.

Given that they bought Nokia, only to shut it down, more or less, it would be reasonable for the shareholders to get a plan, detailing how LinkedIn will boost Microsofts business, with more that the $26 billion.

<comment><USER9> I wonder how much of the value was attributed to vanity metrics like the number of times people check the site? An inflated number since LinkedIn started using short term exploitation tactics like sending Notification Badges for your contacts' Birthdays and Work Anniversaries. Personally I also feel fleeced out of an outrageous monthly subscription that was sneaked through an undeclared AppStore transaction (I got >50% of the money back but not all). At this point I'm planning on deleting my account.

<comment><USER10> Did you consider suing? It's the only way to reach today's modern corporation.

<comment><USER11> Or you know, you could post it here and I bet you can find someone who works for the company.

<comment><USER10> Why? Dark patterns are intentional, you know. That's theft, as if they stole your wallet.

You don't accidentally bill people for a subscription service - and if you did you'd reverse it the instant you discovered it, not try to hide.

Save your righteous mercy for people who steal from _you_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Per LinkedIn's Form 8-K [1], LinkedIn has agreed to pay Microsoft a $725 million break-up fee if (a) LinkedIn's Board of Directors withdraws its recommendation of the merger, (b) LinkedIn accepts a superior offer, or (c) LinkedIn's stockholders turn the merger down. Note that LinkedIn _may_ terminate the merger without paying the break-up fee if it avoids announcing an acquisition within one year of so terminating [2].

[1] [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1271024/000110465916...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1271024/000110465916126712/a16-13234_18k.htm)

[2] [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1271024/000110465916...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1271024/000110465916126713/a16-13234_1ex2d1.htm)

<comment><USER13> Is it normal to have the clause about the shareholders turning the merger down? Seems like one helluva way to ram it down shareholders throats without much option to say no.

<comment><USER14> That's why it's done.

<comment><USER15> As a shareholder I would find that kind of behaviour to have been the exact opposite of the kind of duty my mangers owe me. I'm surprised it's legal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is a fantastic move for Microsoft, and IMO, a premature throwing-in-the- towel moment for LinkedIn. At $26B, that's less than 10% of Facebook's market- cap. That's a steal for the world's biggest Social-Professional Network, and the medium through which most recruiting could conceivably happen in the future. Given that MS currently has no social presence at all, but has a fantastic enterprise sales channel, LinkedIn is a great asset for them.

The idea of going to physical career fairs in thousands of colleges around the country, and collecting/handing out paper resumes just to make the connections happen, always seemed like a woefully inefficient way of connecting job seekers with employers. In the future, this process is going to become more and more digital, and networks like LinkedIn are going to become vital hubs in this new wave. If Microsoft can find a way to accelerate and monetize this trend, this acquisition could well be one of the best deals of the decade.

<comment><USER17> LinkedIn at 10% of Facebook's cap is super over valued. It's pure spam. Everyone is suggesting Microsoft will improve, add features! It would have been better and cheaper to create from scratch. LinkedIn exists in a space that none of the big player care to enter seriously.

<comment><USER18> It would not have been cheaper to create from scratch, certainly not in a reasonable amount of time. You're truly underestimating just how sticky a product like LinkedIn really is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Skype, Nokia, Minecraft, LinkedIn. Also Yahoo, almost, at one point.

Best of luck to Microsoft with its latest acquisition. It doesn't look that sensible though.

<comment><USER20> Skype is one of the more regrettable acquisitions. Linux support has been deplorable ever since.

<comment><USER21> At least it does work. Which of course Skype for Business completely doesn't, even in browsers (on Linux). Even then buying a Skype for Business account on Windows it's the most confusing mess as they assume that you're buying the full Office 365 suite and want to take over your email sending. Which contains this massive admin section that's basically empty and doesn't make much sense. So then you end up with some terrible email@example.com account which unless you pay for more than the basic package isn't an email address at all. So people still have to manually send you the link for any meeting that you are a part of. Then you have to do a real hunt to find the download for Skype for Business - cause they all assume you just bought the whole Office 365.

I also can't connect to any Skype for Business account via Skype on Linux - just for messaging. That does work for some people for my Skype account on Windows to connect to Skype for Business but half the people don't get my contact requests or they are never shown online.

Of course then there's Slack. Slack works everywhere. On top of that Slack (non-video) calls work almost everywhere except for the Firefox and Desktop apps on Linux.

<comment><USER22> From Mobile OS/Nokia to Business Chat/Skype, MS has a knack for have all right pieces at the right time and still missing big shifts in the industry.

I saw demos of Surface ( Now PixelSense ) almost a year before the first iPhone was announced. My company was using Skype back in 2006 to do what we do now with Slack. It's amazing how a top tech company can stay on top while consistently being so far behind the curve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The biggest thing hampering LinkedIn's growth has been such a strong tech market. This is also why many HN readers are not familiar with it. When the market is strong, those with technology skills can find work in a few hours without using any platform.

But if the market dips, things like LinkedIn's recommendations will become useful and relevant. Less so for technology workers than for those with softer skills, but far more relevant than they are today.

LinkedIn is pretty big in the NYC startup scene because overall people are more ambitious in a career ambition way... Silicon Valley has more ambition to build cool things and so having a LinkedIn profile feels like wearing a suit and having one's teeth professionally whitened and going around formally shaking hands with people.

LinkedIn is also one of the few innovators in dark pattern UI research. Each week I get an invitation email accidentally sent by someone over 60 who signed up for LinkedIn and spammed his/her entire Gmail address book with invites.

I hope the acquisition isn't being driven by LinkedIn's lead-gen functionality, since that has been the main reason I've considered deleting my profile. Most of the people who attempt to connect are selling something, which reduces the platform's usefulness as a social network.

The best thing about the acquisition is that lots of that money will flow back into the startup ecosystem.

<comment><USER24> Not familiar with it? LinkedIn has been working their evil magic for so many years it's hard to imagine how you could be involved in the tech industry at all without having had to fend off at least a little bit of their bullshit. I am totally familiar with them, having ground my way through the process that eventually stops their relentless flow of content-free nag mail, and my feelings can be described in a single word: contempt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Congrats to anyone who was holding LinkedIn stock. Microsoft's bid of $196 per share has LNKD up $63 bucks a share or 48% in premarket.

Edit: Also a cautionary tale for anyone shorting a stock that fundamentally sucks but could be a buyout target. Use options instead!

<comment><USER26> Perhaps congrats on the loss and write down if you bought above $196. Looks like LNKD traded north of $200 for a good portion of the last 2 years.

<comment><USER25> Ouch, I knew it took a big hit after dismal earnings and guidance last time (or two) but thought it had recovered a bit. Congrats on breaking even then I guess to anyone holding since Feb.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> $26 Billion is actually fair : The question is, would it provide earnings of $2.6 Billion per year discounted over the next ten years?

I think so.

Keep in mind, MS sells $90 billion of product and services a year, so we're talking less than 3% of that. (MS cost of revenue is about a third of revenues!)

1] First imagine LinkedIn used as the primary sales channel for MS products. Head of sales is probably salivating.

2] And then there is advertising. I think part of the reason LinkedIn is valuable is this: apart from LinkedIn there is no simple way (barring credit cards or other documents) to verify if an account who signs up to an online service is a real person, or who they claim to be. For an advertising business, this is gold: Expect the LinkedIn federated sign on to be integrated into many microsoft services (and by more third party services.)

Strategically if you are selling software/anything, you have are better off targeting the top 10% of earners rather than a gazillion broke teenagers.

Of course there are fake profiles on LinkedIn, but they are minor, and weeding them out is probably easier than on other platforms.

<comment><USER11> > $26 Billion is actually fair : The question is, would it provide earnings of > $2.6 Billion per year discounted over the next ten years?

> Keep in mind, MS sells $90 billion of product and services a year, so we're > talking less than 3% of that. (MS cost of revenue is about a third of > revenues!)

30%

<comment><USER27> Annualized over 10 years. One of the ways you value a company is by discounting the future cashflows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> MS : "If you don't upgrade to Windows 10, we'll create a linkedin profile for you."

</comment><comment><USER29> I wish people would read company's quarterly performance reports before making claims about whether we're in a bubble and whether company x is worth y. LinkedIn generates a ton of revenue and is very arguably worth its valuation. Just because you don't use LinkedIn or SnapChat or whatever else has a ridiculous valuation these days doesn't mean its valuation is not justified in some way.

<comment><USER30> The problem is that revenue is not profit. If expenses are greater than revenue and the trends don't show that changing soon (i.e. "default dead") then it is extremely hard to justify such a high valuation. There are the employees, the physical infrastructure, the code they've written, the brand name, and maybe the marketing value of the users, but granting a valuation based on consistently negative profit is somewhat silly.

<comment><USER29> That's debatable since many companies like Amazon are able to turn a profit by sacrificing growth. Good point though and this information is also available in quarterly earnings reports. The main argument I was making really is that people should take a look at some numbers before having such strong opinions. I believe last I checked LinkedIn was profitable.

<comment><USER31> LinkedIn is not profitable. They lose money every quarter. Revenue is around $800-900MM a quarter though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> nevi-me I hope this will usher in an era of less unethical behaviour from the company under new leadership. Congratulations to shareholders.

Anyone know why they'd negotiate an all cash settlement?

<comment><USER32> > I hope this will usher in an era of less unethical behaviour from the > company under new leadership.

/s ?

<comment> nevi-me Not sarcasm, I'm thinking MS purchases the company knowing what its issues (or perceived) are. I see MS as the lesser of 2 evils, a company I can generally trust with my data.

The 'Dark Patterns' that LNKD employs would hurt the rest of MS, so this less unethical behaviour would be as that result.

Also helps that LNKD will be consolidated with MS in future, so maybe less pressure on the bottom-line as they'll be a part of the MS group instead of shareholders expecting certain EPS from them.

<comment><USER32> I thought the 'less unethical' was the giveaway, as if you expect them to still be unethical.

<comment><USER33> With a culture as deeply infused with an utter lack of respect for user privacy, reputation or safety, I would expect them to be unethical in essentially all cases, short of, perhaps, a complete management purge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> "LinkedIn will retain its distinct brand, culture and independence" \-- well that's a shame..

</comment><comment><USER35> What a terrible time to be burning that much cash, just before the next recession, and on a resume site. I was starting to see some good things coming from Microsoft but this makes me shake my head and question leadership big time.

<comment><USER36> > just before the next recession

Citation needed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> This makes a ton of sense for everyone. LinkedIn is too small to be a dominant platform like Google or Facebook. If someone were to buy it, it would be someone with a strong enterprise presence, with an incomplete social footprint. It would also need to be a company with a high enough market cap to afford the purchase, and PE ratio for it to appear dilutive.

Who fits the profile?

\- IBM - They are in share buyback mode, not major purchases

\- Oracle - Social may not matter to them

\- SAP - Too many issues from prior acquisitions

\- HP - Splitting, but building

Microsoft is the ideal buyer.

The key is integration. Microsoft doesn't have a great history for integration, but that was also under the prior regime.

</comment><comment><USER38> My take on this:

\- Better integration of Dynamics CRM with LinkedIn \- A move towards social selling with LinkedIn Sales Navigator \- Enriched LinkedIn news-feed with updates from work life (example: meetings, projects) \- Better Cortana (personal assistant) that can help you professionally \- Integration of Office suite with LinkedIn learning \- Usage of Bing for professional search

<comment><USER39> Yes, me too.

The ability to automatically import contact's data into Dynamics, with integration directly into Skype for Business. One click call integration for all your customers!

Staff directory as a service? Maybe. Merged with Office 365 that might make sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Here's looking forward to my Hotmail account email address being accidentally 'shared' with LinkedIn and the never-ending LinkedIn spam returning.

</comment><comment><USER41> What's interesting about this deal is what didn't happen 1\. Google who is right next door and wants to make a dent in Cloud didn't go after them 2\. LinkedIn who is a monopoly in this category- decided to give up trying to go its own- seems like they knew they topped out

<comment><USER42> Are you saying Google should've bought LinkedIn? How does that contribute to Google cloud platform?

<comment><USER41> Sorry. I meant Enterprise

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> A huge database which can be utilized for sales. Who to talk to with what profile, which kind of approach is likely to work, and so forth. A great opportunity for some data mining folks!

<comment><USER44> What I never get with these huge acquisitions is what about the user's privacy?

They never agreed with Microsoft to have their data but somehow ms automatically gets access to it?

<comment><USER45> Straight from the privacy policy: "If there is a change in control or sale of all or part of LinkedIn, we may share your information with a third party, who will have the right to use that information in line with this Privacy Policy." So not Microsoft specifically but they did agree LinkedIn could transfer their data to any buyer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> LinkedIn has a huge presence in the professional users and businesses. A large number of people from non-tech backgrounds never got onto LinkedIn because they never kew of it or didn't really bother to create a profile here.

Imagine integrating LinkedIn profiles with Microsoft's professional tools or even Windows. The reach of LinkedIn will be massive if Microsoft gives it a push through Windows.

It's likely that this boost does not necessarily convert into increasing revenue, but it can certainly boost the number of active users that LinkedIn has.

And I hope, now that it is acquired, LinkedIn will stop pushing us to spam all of our contacts about joining it, updating profiles or whatever.

</comment><comment><USER47> " Will continue to operate independently ".

Why do they even say that. Microsoft didn't pay 20billion for a passive investment.

Such a silly thing to say.

<comment><USER48> And either way, as an MS and LI user, I _want_ MS to meddle. I want them to fix the dumpster-fire that is LinkedIn. Nobody _likes_ LinkedIn except recruiters.

<comment><USER17> It won't be fixed. If anything it will be worse...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> LinkedIn owns Lynda, but Microsoft (MSDN) partnered with Pluralsight, interesting how that will play out.

<comment><USER50> Well both of those are underwhelming in terms of both content and user experience.

<comment><USER51> I've had no experience with Lynda but what's underwhelming about PS? It definitely seems to lack of depth in a lot of courses but provides a good overview/refresher on things in my experience.

<comment><USER50> As you mentioned lack of depth is the larger one, but also the rate at which they add new content is not exactly great. Lastly they tend to reuse the same author's for certain subjects which creates a lack of diversity in the teaching. These last two are common to both Lynda and Pluaralsight. At $25.00 and $30.00/month this is one of the highest priced subscription services on the internet and as such you would expect much more from them.

<comment><USER51> Yeah I'll admit I hadn't considered lack of instructor diversity. Subscription fees are thankfully paid for by my employer so it's not a huge issue for me personally but I could understand how that would be difficult to justify for individuals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Holy fuck that is a lot of money. How on earth is LinkedIn worth anywhere near that?!

<comment><USER53> Well they did do $3 billion in revenue last year. [http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=LNKD+Income+Statement&annual](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=LNKD+Income+Statement&annual)

<comment><USER8> Revenue isn't really relevant when you're losing money as fast as Linkedin. They have no real competitors, and they still aren't able to turn a profit.

Even $3 billion is to much.

<comment><USER54> They're not losing money all that fast and are spending heavily on growth. They also have a lot of money in the bank ($3.1B in cash and short term securities) so that's pretty much exactly what it's there for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Noob question: how can Microsoft buy LinkedIn given that large parts of it are owned buy random investors who might not want to sell?

What happens to someone who, lets say, bought $10k worth of LinkedIn stock two years ago and has no intention to sell. Will that person be forced to sell his stock?

<comment><USER56> Generally, the corporation's internal governing documents will specify the rules for sale, but the norm is a majority vote of the shareholders. Those who voted against may have some remedies if the firm was undervalued, but, yes, they can be forced to sell stock.

<comment> shawn-butler The remedies vary but in Delaware these disputes are heard in Delaware's Court of Chancery.

You can google for recent judgement in the (re?)purchase of Dell by Michael Dell. Chancellor ruled the stock was underpriced by the terms of the sale but the remedy is available only to those shareholders who sued not all.

Appraisal is a bizarre bit of corporate law to say the least.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I had been thinking recently about deleting my LinkedIn account. The question has just been settled.

<comment><USER58> It's a lot like dating. Today you can simply post a profile on a site/app, and algorithms can now match you. Your exposure is now hundreds or thousands of people (no matter your preferences). The happenstance of being in the right place at the right time is cut down so much, it's almost irrelevant. It's far more likely a great match will be on the 1 of 3 places single people go, within the last month. It makes better matches faster. It's a superior way to date.

Without being on LinkedIn, you're now relying on only the network you've built to date. Unfortunately, LinkedIn is not as efficient as OkCupid, but it's where everyone is, and it's the best place to find a career match. Saying you're going to delete your LinkedIn account is a lot like saying "eh, I'm just going to grab drinks at the bar until I meet the right person"

<comment><USER59> Personally, I never had any decent job offers from linkedin. Everything has been lukewarm or spammy at best. Angel list on the other hand, works way better for me, so if a gun were put to my head to choose between either and drop the other, I'd drop linkedin.

Linkedin seems kind of useful as far as signalling who/what types of people you are connected to if you don't add everyone at a whim when they request (like sub 250 connections), but I don't really know what that's worth to me or to others, and I don't think this a gun to the head moment.

<comment><USER57> Same for me. Linkedin was only useful as a sort of social network to keep contacts with former colleagues. For the Swiss job market, jobup.ch is the way to go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> This could be totally unrelated, but damn this is a pretty stupid bad signal.

LinkedIn's iOS Developer Community cancels WWDC watch party after Microsoft purchase: [http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/06/13/linkedins-ios- deve...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/06/13/linkedins-ios-developer- community-cancels-wwdc-watch-party-after-microsoft-purchase)

<comment><USER61> I imagine it's to stop hoards of reporters from coming in and bugging them for as many details as possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> I'm genuinely curious as to what makes LinkedIn worth _that_ much. On the surface it just looks like Microsoft is trying to commit suicide.

As as aside, how many startups in Silicon Valley are rushing to up their spam game in the wake of this? :)

</comment><comment><USER63> It'll be interesting to see how they integrate LinkedIn with Yammer (if they do at all). Particularly with the launch of Facebook at Work recently too.

</comment><comment><USER64> just my own prediction.. msft will attempt to replatform the entire stack onto Azure, making heavy use of their Azure platform services as a way to show how scalable they are (sort of the same play they made with hotmail decades ago).

<comment><USER65> That's a very safe and sure bet. Why it would go any other way would be really puzzling.

<comment><USER66> Will they also rewrite it from Node to .NET core?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> How does it work when a public company acquires another public company? If you have existing LinkedIn shares, do they get converted to Microsoft shares?... or do they just disappear one day, and a pile of cash takes its place?

<comment><USER26> In this case, the deal was structured as all cash. So the latter is exactly what happens. One day in your brokerage account you will see $X for every Y shares you had.

<comment><USER67> What about employee equity? Especially unvested options or stock units?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Can someone explain how Microsoft bought a publicly traded company? Shareholders own Linked in, so did they buy a controlling interest and or is there currently a tender offer circulating for all holders of the common stock?

Also curious that MS is valuing it Linked stock at $196 dollars a share when before the weekend it was trading at $133. Did they believe it was undervalued by almost 50% then? That seems dubious.

<comment><USER68> In the announcement Hoffman is described as the "controlling shareholder". Presumably this controlling interest [1] gives him the ability to agree to the sale without necessarily having the agreement of the other shareholders.

[1] [http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/controllinginterest.asp](http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/controllinginterest.asp)

<comment><USER50> Ah, I missed that pertinent detail in the announcement, makes sense. Thanks. Facebook is similar in this respect - a controlling person and publicly traded entity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> To put things in perspective, WhatsApp was bought in October, 2014 for $22 billion.

</comment><comment><USER70> I believe it will be great for whole industry, because microsoft money pushed Likedin to more user and developer friendly environment (Yes, I suppose they will open API again aka twitter). Better API will bring more business tools integration, so it increases role of Linkedin, as result it will push the whole social media market to a new level, instead current stagnation.

</comment><comment><USER71> I think Salesforce is about to get much stronger competition from Microsoft's Dynamics CRM. If they connect Dynamics CRM with LinkedIn's massive database of orgs and professionals--a treasure trove for marketing and sales teams--and embargoes other CRM software from that data[0], I can see them taking market share from Salesforce.

[0] LinkedIn did exactly this when it acquired Rapportive—another popular sales tool. They let Rapportive continue accessing LinkedIn data but blocked competitors from doing so.

PS - They mention that, as a result of this acquisition, Office 365 users might be able to invite other professionals to collaborate on their documents or projects. It's interesting that they chose such a weak example, when it's clear there are much greater benefits they'll be able to offer. One I already mentioned, and many more are mentioned in this thread. Probably trying to keep competitors guessing?

</comment><comment><USER72> The comments here are hilarious, they really reveal the IT bubble.

The only real complaint about this purchase would be that LinkedIn was overvalued. And I wouldn't bet on that since Microsoft surely sent a big team of their brightest cookies to make a valuation of the company.

But other than that, LinkedIn fits: it is a corporate social network, if you will. I know that "corporate social network" is almost an oxymoron, but bear with me. It is social in the sense that users register and interact with each other just as on a regular social network, but ultimately the service is corporate focused. LinkedIn has created one of the biggest and best maintained databases of employment information (and of possible business contacts) in the world. As TheArcane said, LinkedIn is "Facebook + Monster on steroids".

If you don't believe me, try to speak to people you know, active professionals outside of the IT sector and see how many of them have LinkedIn profiles. Better yet, talk to people who are not in employer-dominated sectors (i.e. not like IT, where the demand for qualified workers greatly exceeds the supply).

<comment><USER73> does anyone actually interact on LinkedIn? I thought it was just a platform for recruitment spam

<comment><USER74> Imagine this: A recruiter messages you and then follows up with a skype interview through LinkedIn.

<comment><USER75> So you can tell them in person that you don't live in the same country or work in even vaguely the same area rather than ignoring them as you do now?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> LNKD is extremely powerful when paired with CRM. To the point that MSFT might have seen this as a better choice than buying Salesforce, especially as their own in house CRM offering (Dynamics) is becoming very strong, and far more likeable for end users.

The biggest loser from this deal was Salesforce, they will be gutted.

This move took me completely by surprise, and I'm pretty impressed in Nadella for pulling it off. Although LNKD is a pretty ordinary proposition (financially - and what else really matters nowadays) by itself, 1 + 1 can equal 3 if it is linked tightly with Microsoft's productivity products such as Skype for Business, Outlook, CRM etc. And MSFT took advantage of LNKDs poor recent performance to buy them "cheap" while making their management look like hero's when the market was beginning to think they were anything but.

<comment><USER66> you work at hubspot with that ridiculous terminology? 1 + 1 = 2 period.

<comment><USER76> I'm not sure what you mean? No I don't have anything to do with hubspot...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Wonder how many people will use this as an opportunity to either create a linkedin profile or to delete the one they already have. Change-of-control risks on a deal like this are substantial.

This is also an excellent reminder that you never know where the profiles you create will end up.

<comment><USER77> Yeah, I am debating closing mine today.

<comment><USER78> You better hurry before Microsoft removes that "feature".

<comment><USER77> LOL, sounds like it won't be until the end of the year for the deal to have a chance to succeed, and only then will Microsoft get the LinkedIn keys. So I think I will wait until the deal has a better chance of closing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> Genuine question... what do MS stand to gain from this?

<comment><USER80> One can only assume that they want to dig their heels into entreprise. LinkedIn is massive when it comes to professional connections & Hiring, even company PR. LinkedIn has a bunch of products that can connect well into MS's ecosystems and add value there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Seems grossly over priced on a per active user basis: ________

26.2 billion / (425 million*25% active) =

$247 per active user

<comment><USER82> Is that 25% active an estimate or a reported number?

<comment><USER81> The source for the 25% of users being active in a month was from the 3rd quarter earnings report for 2015.

[http://venturebeat.com/2015/10/29/linkedin-now- has-400m-user...](http://venturebeat.com/2015/10/29/linkedin-now- has-400m-users-but-only-25-of-them-use-it-monthly/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> Somewhat more info in the press release:

[http://news.microsoft.com/2016/06/13/microsoft-to-acquire- li...](http://news.microsoft.com/2016/06/13/microsoft-to-acquire-linkedin/)

<comment><USER84> That makes $60.5 per user. Compared to other social networks this seems to be within a reasonable range.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Perhaps LinkedIn will use fewer evil antipatterns now that its ownership has something resembling a reputation to uphold.

<comment><USER79> Unsure if you're being serious... don't need to look much further than Windows 10 auto update to see how much Microsoft care...

<comment><USER86> Microsoft employs fifty thousand engineers. A group of them fucked up with that Windows 10 debacle. I reckon on the whole Microsoft very much do care about their reputation.

<comment><USER87> So you're arguing that it was just "a rogue employee" that made that decision and executed it?

<comment><USER86> No, I'm saying that a group of individuals in the company made the decision, including managers and perhaps senior execs. It was not a board level decision, at least imo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> I bought linkedin a couple of months ago at like 108 or so... I'm debating whether or not to sell half or all my stock... needless to say the wife is thrilled that I finally did some investing right :)

<comment><USER89> I was wondering this too, but I think half the reason the stock jumped up to ~192 is due to the sentiment of this acquisition being approved by the FTC.

Since it's a cash deal, you'll miss out on ~$4 share, and since you bought in Feb/March, you'll end up paying your normal tax rate in capital gains. My guess is they approve this deal before Feb/March so no clear advantage holding for that reason.

Perhaps someone else could chime in as well?

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> Most Important Question : Do LinkedIn employees stop getting free food or Microsoft employees get free food now?

</comment><comment><USER91> I'm not sure what Microsoft is getting with LinkedIn for $26bn.

I know it is a little crazy, but I think they would have been better off buying Redhat for $15bn or Canonical (Ubuntu linux) for even cheaper.

<comment><USER92> That would attract truly unprecedented levels of hostility and a declaration of war by segments of the Linux community.

<comment><USER93> Probably. On the other hand, Redhat kind of pulled up the drawbridge and focused on parts of the market that don't care so much with the RHEL / Fedora change. Of the major Linux distributions, I think Redhat is the one whose userbase would be least likely to be upset.

A few years back it'd have been totally unthinkable, but today, given that MSFT has surprised repeatedly with a more friendly approach towards the open source community, and given that Redhat - while still contributing _a lot_ \- has pulled back in a sense, it would be less problematic.

Wouldn't be trivial to pull off, by any means, though. I think if MS would like to pick up a major Linux vendor, they'd better spend a year and lots of money buttering up the community with more open source releases and PR first.

<comment><USER65> Red Hat pulled back how?

As for buttering any Linux distribution, I think Microsoft has focused traditionally on SUSE (even announced an "alliance" back in '11).

<comment><USER93> > Red Hat pulled back how?

By focusing on the enterprise, they became much less visible for individual Linux users. Even though Fedora is still there, it was a huge shift in how engaged Redhat apppeared to those not directly involved with projects that Redhat are involved in.

They still contribute massively, but they are much less visible outside of enterprise users than they used to be.

Of course this is not all their doing - the rise of Ubuntu also contributed, but arguable Ubuntu would have had a much harder time if it wasn't for the Redhat shift.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> That's quite the pay day for Reid Hoffman. 14.5m shares at $196 = $2.8bn. All cash deal. Ching ching!!

</comment><comment><USER95> Two shitty companies merge. I can only imagine what Microsoft has planned for LinkedIn. Hopefully this is one of those acquisitions where they purchase it and shut it down months later.

</comment><comment><USER96> Are the guys in the picture at the top photoshopped on another pic?

<comment><USER97> Regarding the picture at the top of the article, it looks like it's been photoshopped.

The lighting is inconsistent with the background. I think the tree on the left has been added with the same lighting to try make the lighting of Satya and the two others unnoticed.

Without the tree, this picture would be blatantly laughable. At the same level as [http://goo.gl/S6y3Qx](http://goo.gl/S6y3Qx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> The internet is becomming more and more like real world businesses.

We're going to be left with four or so big companies. Facebook, Google, Microsoft.

Yahoo Twitter e.t.c will be swallowed up next.

<comment><USER99> Don't forget Amazon

<comment><USER100> will not be swallowed

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER101> Here's hoping Microsoft keeps up it's recent good guy persona, and starts actively identifying and removing dark patterns from LinkedIn.

<comment><USER102> /sarcasm?

<comment><USER101> No, I'm serious. I'm not a big MS fan, but they've been doing some good things lately. Hopefully they can make LinkedIn feel less scummy.

<comment><USER102> Prior to forcing people's computers to move to Win 10 and using scummy badware tactics (close the dialog to install, no "do not install" option) I'd have agreed; MS looked like they were reforming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER103> The only explanation I can come up with is an aquihire of dark ui-pattern experts from LinkdIn to better trick users into installing Windows 10.

</comment><comment><USER104> An angle I haven't seen anyone mention:

They now own Lynda.com, one of the strongest software and general education entities out there. This gives them not only a channel for promoting their own software (or providing some really comprehensive integrated help/training), but an insight into what kinds of software and other training people are putting time into.

</comment><comment><USER105> We updated the link from [http://blogs.microsoft.com/firehose/2016/06/13/microsoft- to-...](http://blogs.microsoft.com/firehose/2016/06/13/microsoft-to-acquire- linkedin/#sm.001trr8qq17rjdt2xt1122l06mc16), which points to this.

</comment><comment><USER106> IMO, Microsoft has the means and resources to sift thru linkedIn metadata to gain an hiring advantage over their competitors. In addition they could probably infer what other companies are doing thru their hiring and searches. There is no other platform like this with this scale another monopoly; human resources.

</comment><comment><USER107> Interesting to see the obvious pro-microsoft bias in comments here. I can only imagine the worst from microsoft and their user-hostile behaviour.

* trojan-like telemetry impossible to control or block

* malware-like behaviour through "legitimate" software update channels, force-feeding windows 10 on unwilling customers

* embrace-extend-extinguish, mission accomplished by destroying Nokia's smart phone business

* their recent shenanigans with skype, and how they killed Linux support

* their abysmal, hard-to-use new directions in UI design (flat, 2D, no contrast, paper-like, or even metro for that matter)

I can already think of three to four nasty ways they can leverage (abuse) all the LinkedIn user information, work history, contacts, and networks, and I'm sure they will do it based on their recent user-antagonistic behaviour.

Oh, but they've nicely polished up their PR machinery so everything's cool now.

<comment><USER108> I totally agree that Hacker News is becoming quite bias ... This in itself should be raise with the ycombinator itself, the bias is what pushed Slashdot down

<comment><USER109> At least in the discussions area, there is a distinct lack of "hacker culture" opinion expressed on any topic, given the name of the forum. At least from where I am standing, this reflects very poorly on ycombinator, and the "Tech Culture" that they are putting investors in touch with.

 __Trigger Warning - Doubleplus Ungood Thoughtcrime ahead __

For a certain portion of the readership, Microsoft can do no wrong ... and when they do wrong, it 's never their fault.

Perhaps the site should be renamed to "Young Upwardly Mobile Professionals with Rose Coloured Glasses and No Clue, Living in an Artificially Inflated 1st World Bubble News" would be a more accurate title.

This acquisition makes perfect sense for anyone who thinks that "the real economy" is in great shape, and middle management jobs are likely to experience unheard of growth over the next few years. Layoff numbers are just made up propaganda, and everyone around the world loves the US Dollar.

When this level of backslapping groupthink starts to predominate, its a pretty sure sign that things are rotten in Denmark, and should be a clear warning sign for smart investors in this market. But .... each to their own, its their money they are gambling with I suppose. (or conversely, other people's retirement hopes that they are gambling with)

 __ __*

Anyway, I find it interesting that Linkedin's infrastructure is written in a mashup of Java, Scala, Ruby, and God knows what else.

You can almost guarantee that somewhere in the corridors of power, some pointy haired boss types are putting together a PowerPoint® presentation on how they are going to port all of Linkedin's codebase to .NET in 3 easy steps, for great profit. What could possibly go wrong ?

Big congrats to anyone that manages to cash in their Linkedin stock in the near future. If so, you have just managed to sell premium seats on the deck of the Titanic for top dollar !!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER110> At least Microsoft will be able to tout the inability to delete a LinkedIn profile as a feature and not a bug.

</comment><comment><USER111> I've read many complaints about how linkedin is a tool that has so much potential if it was just done right... and no one here is entertaining the possibility that MS is thinking the same way? I know MS has a bad track record for acquisitions but I think this one has a lot of potential.

</comment><comment><USER112> "Think: everyone who graduates from college and looks for a job will now have a Microsoft account."

[https://twitter.com/saschasegan/status/742342770891862016](https://twitter.com/saschasegan/status/742342770891862016)

<comment><USER113> Am I the only one who has applied and gotten jobs without ever creating a LinkedIn account?

After hearing all the horror stories about their email spam (and how they spam all your contacts) and how random recruiters contact you with irrelevant offers, I have (so far) managed to stay completely off LinkedIn and hope to never have to sign up.

<comment><USER114> You probably have an account: LinkedIn has many ghost accounts auto-generated based on findings from trawling users' address books/contact lists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER115> I know bandwidth is cheap these days but including a 14.9mb cover image on such a major story....?

</comment><comment> chris-at I for one welcome our new Windows overlords!

Let's hope they pull another Nokia with this, er, beloved company.

</comment><comment><USER116> If I use Skype acquisition as a guide we can expect advertisements all over the site very soon.

</comment><comment><USER117> LinkedIn closed public trading on Friday at ~131 per share. This deal represents a $196 per share price - so anyone that purchased on Friday is looking at ~50% ROI.

Is this the best non-Facebook ROI for a social network that's been available to the public markets?

</comment><comment><USER118> Headline should have been "Microsoft adds LinkedIn to their professional network"

<comment><USER119> Underrated post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER120> I am currently a grad student at a top5 university in US and been at a top5 in India. I can say from experience that LinkedIn is dying and no longer valued as professional profile. LinkedIn had a nice concept of connection, however after a few accept alls I have 500+ connections with a similar amount pending. The messages I receive are garbage, the feed is stale. There is no incentive to open the website and I have unsubscribed from all their marketing email as they are ~ spam. Maybe this is just me but I feel WhatsApp is way more popular /useful/growing and Microsoft paid more than that for a dying network.

<comment><USER121> True, Linkedin is spam and their apps/feed are copycats of FB. But, they have a monopoly over professional networking and so recruiting. The data is the gold mine, there's no way any new company would be able to convince 440 million people to create profile with all the information. So all MSFT wants to is to probably improve their product line, cross sell Office/Dynamics to Linkedin's customers and may be buy some HR/payroll to create a complete suite(Recruting+ HR + Communication + Enterprise tools).

</comment></comment><comment><USER122> On their press release[1] presentation[2] they have shown this as Microsoft's Graph - [http://imgur.com/elacuzH](http://imgur.com/elacuzH). How and Why is the question.

[1]-[https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/Investor) [2]-[https://c.s-microsoft.com/en- us/CMSFiles/InvestorPresentatio...](https://c.s-microsoft.com/en- us/CMSFiles/InvestorPresentation.pptx?version=a19a08fd-6017-7f22-64c3-2f9aec438edf)

</comment><comment><USER123> Do many people use Yammer? The company that I'm with tried it a few years back and it just wasn't useful for us. I wonder if they will end up merging Yammer, or at least some Yammer features, into LinkedIn at some point.

<comment><USER124> It's essentially unchanged since they bought it. I think all they really did was put Yammer notifications in Outlook. I wouldn't be surprised if LinkedIn turns out the same way.

They had to write off the Nokia deal (over 7 billion I believe), this might be the next one of those.

<comment><USER125> I think their ability to write-off most of the $26b in a couple years must be a defining feature of the whole transaction. I.e. "Oh well, at least the Fed is paying for half of it!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER126> Stock price movements after one day: MSFT down ~ $12bn, LNKD up ~ $9bn.

Looks like they overpaid a bit.

</comment><comment><USER127> I wonder what the future holds for Lynda.com which was just recently purchased by LinkedIn. I've been a member for years and was already concerned over the LI acquisition. Hopefully, they are not lost in the shuffle.

</comment><comment><USER128> Oh wow. This purchase does not make any sense. What benefit does LinkedIn bring to Microsoft?

Wouldn't surprise me another competitor will emerge and replace LinkedIn. It's time anyway with their annoying spamming of late.

<comment><USER86> Imagine you're one of the biggest companies in the world.

On from that imagine you could afford to buy one of the most comprehensive CRMs in the world and all the lovely data it holds. In addition to the fringe benefits, if Microsoft use this purchase intelligently they'll reap serious rewards from it.

(I fucking hate Linked In, but I think it's a legit purchase for Microsoft)

<comment><USER128> True - I can see them using this purchase to sell more cloud services by mining the data for connections.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER129> [https://twitter.com/ThePracticalDev/status/74234336148344832...](https://twitter.com/ThePracticalDev/status/742343361483448320)

</comment><comment><USER130> I was already very upset with the direction Windows 10 was taking in term of privacy. Now Microsoft wants to be big in social network. I hate to say that but it is really time to ditch Windows.

</comment><comment><USER131> Plusses: LinkedIn is distinctive among social networks. That's one reason Facebook hasn't killed LinkedIn, yet. Though I increasingly find my business contacts interact with me on Facebook rather than LinkedIn. A bigger plus may be that a business-oriented social network is strategically coherent for Microsoft.

Minuses: LinkedIn is relatively small. It's not that well-implemented. It has an oddball business model. It has no messaging component, and that's where social networking is going.

</comment><comment><USER132> I think it's telling of the times, my increased opinion of Microsoft, and my horrible impression of LinkedIn, that I expect this to result in better LinkedIn behavior than previously. Microsoft still has its own problems, but in my opinion they are far better than the skeezy feeling I get from LinkedIn's marketing and promotion to "linked" email accounts (that is, addresses they've associated to you and send notices that people are trying to contact you on).

<comment><USER5> Facebook does something similarly sleazy. I have multiple email accounts. Facebook hasn't made the connection that I'm the same person. On each email account I regularly get emails saying that my profile has already been set-up and all I have to do is log-in for the first time by clicking on this link (and yes, I have a Facebook account linked to a different email address).

<comment><USER132> I'm not sure how this isn't considered spam. Unless you've expressly told them that the other account is yours, there's no way to ensure they aren't sending unsolicited email,as "we thought they would want to know" is not a valid defense against the _laws_ that exist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER133> This kinda makes sense from an enterprise social network perspective. This could tie really well and augment their messaging products (Skype for Business (was Lync)). Most professionals may not have Skype or may not wish to expose their Skype ids but maybe ok with LinkedIn as that has always been their professional front. So basically every LinkedIn account has Skype integration. I can see the marketing angle from a group meeting, and eventually collaboration perspective.

</comment><comment><USER134> Another account which will be forcibly connected with ms credentials. Opportunity to collect another sensitive information in an effort to create "better UX".

<comment><USER79> Worked well for Google +...

</comment></comment><comment><USER135> I hope this does not end up being a Yammer 2.0.

I also don't see other companies advertising jobs on the platform owned my a big tech giant whose sole purpose isn't that. I don't think they will make more money in the "recruiting" side.

This deal sounds like a 50% premium but that just brings it back to what it was 6 months ago, lesser than the peak price. Sounds more like LinkedIn just gave up.

Only positive thing I see is, that MS can bundle HR software with Office 365.

</comment><comment><USER136> LinkedIn is becoming this internet monster.

Where is the ethic alternative that is for everybody? (e.g.: AngelList is only for tech startups stuff and not for waiter kind of stuff).

</comment><comment><USER137> I hope LinkedIn is shut now forever now, with all the spam.

</comment><comment><USER138> In addition to what others have said (what does it get Microsoft, etc.), how would this even be allowed? It would mean most recruiters _going through Microsoft_ to get to candidates. I can just imagine how well that would go over at other tech companies: how can they be sure Microsoft isn't getting "first crack" at people, etc. and does Microsoft then know which companies are about to lose employees?

<comment><USER65> Most recruiters going through Linked Inc. is any different?

What would qualify a company to run an job board?

<comment><USER138> For one thing, the _scale_ is very different: Microsoft is into almost everything, whereas LinkedIn as a company was relatively focused. The number of competing companies that cared about LinkedIn seeing information is far smaller than the number of companies that compete with Microsoft in some way. Never mind the fact that Microsoft owns a _platform_ used by the vast majority of devices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER139> Sounds like an awful lot of money. Must be cheaper ways to make the money LinkedIn is supposed to make them.

And MS has a pretty bad history with these big acquisitions. MS Kin failed. Skype is not what it used to be. People seemed to start leaving it after MS bought it and made it worse. Nokia was a big disaster.

Shouldn't they have learned by now? I pretty sure MS is not going to make back the money spent on LinkedIn.

</comment><comment><USER140> Prediction: LinkedIn will integrate with office 365, and you will be forced into a LinkedIn for Business account when you use Office 365. You can choose to make your information public, private or a combination of both (hopefully).

This will be marketed as a single place to keep up-to-date resumes, towards both job seekers and corporate HR people who want better insight into their own workforce.

</comment><comment><USER141> Why would Microsoft release a major M&A announcement at 8:35 AM EST / 5:35 AM PST? It's not even the professional workday yet!

<comment><USER142> To get the news out without disrupting the markets - it's fairer to allow people to see news like this while the instrument is not trading.

<comment> lloyd-christmas As a prior equities trader, these were our year-makers if it happened during trading hours.

<comment><USER13> Can you elaborate on this for a non-trader?

<comment> lloyd-christmas LNKD closed at $131 per share on Friday and opened at $191 on Monday. That's a $60 move. The news happening outside of trading hours means that all the bid/offers didn't get executed, just that the valuation changed of currently held stock. If it happened during market hours, that move would 1) be more exaggerated due to human psychology, and 2) you'd actually be able to trade the news. If you managed to catch 1,000 shares at 131 before it jumped, you'd be making $60k on an investment of $131k. If you managed to catch only half of the move on 10,000 shares, that's $300k in profit on a $1.3m investment. To put it in perspective, day 1 on my job I was given $1m to "play with and get to know my keyboard shortcuts".

[http://f.ptcdn.info/713/028/000/1424666722-5-o.png](http://f.ptcdn.info/713/028/000/1424666722-5-o.png)

In the image above, the stock price is 3.85. The green columns are bid/ask. It shows that there are 40,000 shares people are trying to buy at 3.84, 33,100 shares to buy at 3.82, etc. On the other side, there are 5 million shares someone is trying to sell at 3.86. If this imaginary stock suddenly was bought for $5.00 per share, You'd be able to buy 5 million shares at 3.86, (for about a $20m investment) and sell all of that for $5, for a profit of $5.7m (this is obviously the ideal case. More likely, those people selling at 3.86 would try to pull their offers before people could buy it, and other people would be trying to buy those 5m shares as well).

In that context and in regards to LNKD, it didn't really trade all that much volume prior to this, so you wouldn't be able to buy all that much stock. But a $60 change is pretty massive. Even catching a fraction of the move is pretty much "free money" just for having your hands on the keyboard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER143> For reference, IPO in May 2011 was for $45/share, and they closed at $94.25 on the first day for a total market cap of $9bn, according to this [1] source.

[1] [http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/19/technology/linkedin_IPO/](http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/19/technology/linkedin_IPO/)

<comment><USER144> The share price hasn't exactly been rosy recently, so at least the shareholders have something to look forward to.

[http://markets.ft.com/research/Markets/Tearsheets/Summary?s=...](http://markets.ft.com/research/Markets/Tearsheets/Summary?s=LNKD:NYQ)

[http://www.reuters.com/article/linkedin-results-research- idU...](http://www.reuters.com/article/linkedin-results-research- idUSKCN0VE1N0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER145> Add that one to the list: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Microsoft#Acquisitions)

Looking trough the list this is probably the biggest acquisition for Microsoft (in monetary value). All-cash transaction nonetheless.

<comment><USER21> It's the 196th purchase that they bought at $196 / share. Somebody was having a laugh in the Finance department.

</comment></comment><comment><USER146> so in the end, a recruiting problem is solved bya software company, now could be named as the big L. wondering what happened to all those people who studied Human Resource as a management branch and what are they doing now when whole recruiting thing is being run by bunch of sw engineers sitting in silicon valley and crunching big data.

<comment><USER147> You still need human beings at companies who do HR, at least at decent sized companies. Someone needs to set up the interviews, walk people around, be the recipient of questions about payroll, PTO etc., and that is work nobody else wants to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER148> I predict the next version of AD/Outlook will allow for direct integration between a company's workforce information and said workforce's public profile. Why bother with scraping your user's contact list when you can feed directly from the source system that already includes their name, email address, and job title.

</comment><comment><USER149> Was this Microsoft's elaborate $26bn marketing plan to get the media to look away from Apple's WWDC announcements?

<comment><USER150> My thoughts exactly! Not that that's the main idea, but it is an odd coincidence that the announcement was today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER151> This is huge.

As an ex-Microsoft, I really don't understand that move. It doesn't make any sense. If the goal is to compete with the like of Facebook, I don't think it'll work as Linkedin is a business network. It makes me want to sell my stocks (-3.63% pre-market).

If I were MS I would have bought slack to replace both Sharepoint and Yammer.

<comment><USER152> Why is having a social network always just about competing with Facebook? Microsoft is very much in the business space, this is a business focused social network. Not a bad place to work on your business brand.

The word is they almost bought Slack, but decided to heavily invest into Lync instead, turning it into Skype for Business and such.

</comment></comment><comment><USER153> Shoot! I was planning to buy the stock soon. Say what you will about the crappiness of the product and the dark patterns, but it was a great stock to buy and probably the only social network with a diverse split in revenues (excluding Facebook - they use acquisitions to diversify revenue but nothing has been monitized yet)

</comment><comment><USER154> From MSFT perspective -- good move. From LinkedIn perspective, good move as well -- they have great backing and got a great deal ($). As a user, I'm sad to see this -- the end of LinkedIn as we know it. I've no interest in MSFT holding my personal info online CV presence. Perhaps time to move to someplace else.

</comment><comment><USER155> I mostly avoid LinkedIn, then they acquired Lynda.com and began integrating into (and basically degrading the experience of) a platform I had enjoyed for many years.

My only concern is what this means for Lynda.com, it would be great if it could return to its pre-LinkedIn state, but I have a feeling it will somehow only get worse.

</comment><comment><USER156> Too much money. Wayyyy too much.

And if this goes the way of most other very large MS acquisitions, it'll be utterly wasted.

</comment><comment><USER157> I personally don't like LinkedIn itself but I recognise that it fills an huge market need. Probably that's why LinkedIn survived to so many bad decisions and was able to retain users.

Once Microsoft is walking the enterprise path, the acquisition looks like a logical investment. (logical != profitable)

</comment><comment><USER158> 196/share is roughly what LNKD was trading at before their very bad earnings report in February. FWIW.

</comment><comment><USER159> Microsoft just spent 5% of their market cap buying Linkedin.

Does anybody think linkedin is worth one twentieth of Microsoft?

I don't.

<comment><USER58> I do, it's literally the most valuable network in the world. Facebook is a friends connection, but LinkedIn is a professional network. Add to that it also has some amazing insight into the macroeconomy, it's also a great tool for prediction.

LinkedIn knows the job report before the jobs report is released. Do you know how much money changes hands after that report is released?

</comment></comment><comment><USER160> I foresee a synergistic relationship between the companies. Microsoft is reorganizing to focus on business cloud solutions, built upon a subscription- based model. The online Office365 suite is the future. Acquiring LinkedIn will allow for targeting IT professionals.

That said, I hate LinkedIn.

</comment><comment><USER161> ALL CASH. Holy fuck.

<comment><USER162> I bet the wire transfer gets held up for being potentially fraudulent because it's so big. I'd love to be the call centre worker who picks up that call.

</comment></comment><comment><USER163> I just can't imagine 26 billion dollars. That's beyond any human's comprehension.

<comment><USER164> You do it through comparisons.

A typical SF Bay Area core house is running close to $1 million these days.

A thousand such homes would be a billion. That's a small town, or a particular (upscale) San Francisco neighborhood, say, PacHeights or Cole Valley. Home to about 3,000 - 4,000 people.

Twenty six neighborhoods would be the full LinkedIn value. Call it 26,000 homes in the San Francisco or Peninsula area. Most of Palo Alto, and a neighboring town, say, Menlo Park, or Redwood City. About 75,000 - 100,000 people. One eighth of San Francisco.

The typical new car is, roughly, $26,000. A thousand of them them is $26 million. A typical freeway lane can see 2,000 cars an hour per lane, or, say for a large 10-lane freeway, 20,000 cars per hour. If you filled that highway to capacity for just over 2 days, you'd see $26 billion worth of (new) cars flowing past.

A 150,000 square foot school at $300/sqft construction costs (via random DDGing) runs about $45 million. You could build about 570 such schools.

Annual operating expenses of a large high school might run about $30 million. You could fund ~870 such schools for a year (or one school for 870 years).

Annual petroleum consumption in the US is about 19.6 million barrels per day. The LinkedIn purchase prices would cover 26 days of $50/bbl oil for the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER165> Link to the press release: [http://news.microsoft.com/2016/06/13/microsoft-to- acquire-li...](http://news.microsoft.com/2016/06/13/microsoft-to-acquire- linkedin/)

</comment><comment><USER166> A social network is only as good as the recency of its data. They could integrate with Bing to show "people you know", and with other tools, it if people stop updating their profiles, it would be an expensive building acquisition.

Congratulations to AngelList!

</comment><comment><USER167> What does this mean for the startup/VC market in the shirt term?

Confidence trending upwards again?

</comment><comment><USER168> Smart for Microsoft and LinkedIn. Yet also means I expect LinkedIn to become even more distasteful to me, increasing the chance I abandon it. I also see no paradox with these two opposing observations. :-)

</comment><comment><USER169> Regardless of how you feel, I think it's pretty amazing that even Microsoft with its vast resources doesn't feel they could compete with LinkedIn if they invested that same 26B in themselves.

<comment><USER170> Users, how are u going to gain those many users.

<comment><USER169> You could spend 1B on the product and still have 25B for user acquisition. Microsoft already has an email list larger than LinkedIn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER171> The fact is, Microsoft needed a content ecosystem. Buying LinkedIn gives it a lot of content AND a huge stake in the recruitment game which is a huge and growing market. The deal makes sense.

<comment><USER162> LinkedIn content is basically the same as Forwards from Grandma with the odd job announcement interspersed

</comment></comment><comment><USER172> The last gasp. Just like Yahoo with tumblr. When a corporate behemoth has a dream of transformation, they rather just buy that dream than to actually undergo transformation themselves.

<comment><USER86> Yahoo were borderline negligent with that purchase. I suspect the shareholders and board at Microsoft have a much better idea of what they're planning to do to monetise Linked In.

<comment><USER173> > Yahoo were borderline negligent with that purchase

That's not what most HNers were saying at that time, they were praising Mayer and her "awesome strategy" of shopping her way into success. Of course it didn't make sense at all, like that deal makes very little sense at all too.

<comment><USER86> Wow - I decided to look up the thread from when the acquisition was announced and I'm shocked at how positive the news was taken by the HN crowd:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5737185](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5737185)

Looks like we've got an army of Captain Hindsight's here now given I never hear anybody defend the purchase on HN now it clearly is a flop.

Furthermore Forbes wrote an article on why the acquisition was a bad idea, and HNers beat it up!

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5737400](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5737400)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER174> LinkedIn + Skype + Yammer gives MS the best inter-business or B2B directory/identity/contact-ibility.

Extremely valuable for a company competing for inter-business collaboration.

Depending how used, of course.

</comment><comment><USER175> I wonder what they do with the online training provider lynda which is owned by linkedin? They could use that to push free training for Azure to increase the reach of its services??

</comment><comment><USER176> I don't think anybody's going to like this but Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER177> It seems like a good fit. I getting these .NET developer recruiters with their "perfect match messages" even though I don't have .NET in my skillset...

</comment><comment><USER178> Time to delete my LinkedIn account, or otherwise corrupt its contents before MS swallows it all. Microsoft doesn't have the right to my intellectual property.

</comment><comment><USER179> Microsoft exec #1: "It seems that people are hating us less and less these days. Somehow, the quality of our products and services is perceived as higher and less hostile to users. That's a problem!"

Microsoft exec #2: "How about we acquire one of the most hated brands out there? One that makes tech people grind their teeth when it's even mentioned. How about LinkedIn? That should tarnish our image up till it's right back where it used to be."

Microsoft exec #1: "There could be a vice-presidency in it for me if I can make that work! Great idea!"

<comment><USER180> Mark my words...

Microsoft should have bought Wordpress. Much cheaper and could replace Sharepoint which is the most terrible invention on earth.

Why diversify your confusing offerings even further from relevance? LinkedIN? Come on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER181> Somehow feel that MS - Slack acquisition is coming soon

</comment><comment><USER182> I hope they do a rewrite/redesign of the frontend.

<comment><USER183> From Scala to .Net?

<comment><USER182> No I'm talking about the user interface and user experience.

<comment><USER183> Jokes aside, I would really like a UI/UX inspired by outlook.com and the other MS web apps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not that LinkedIn was stellar in any regard around user privacy, but is the situation expected to materially degrade under Microsoft?

</comment><comment><USER184> Another nokia.....

</comment><comment><USER185> > To be honest, they're probably buying the users, not the product.

What is the value of those users? I'd argue they're basically worthless, and that this is a disastrously bad acquisition.

Let me propose some concrete measures: How often is the service's single sign- on login button used in your app? What is the value of the users in your app sourced from this service? I'd argue this is a great comparison, because if you can't monetize LinkedIn's users by sourcing them from LinkedIn traditionally (via ads, clever sourcing hacks, sign in buttons, etc.), you're certainly not going to monetize them effectively by owning the whole platform.

Where it is available, Facebook can be something like 10% of a free-to-play mobile game's logins. Facebook ads may be the source for as many as 20% of your users. Facebook login and Facebook sourced users often have long term value twice as high as everyone else.

Facebook is very valuable, and it's what made Zynga, Supercell, IAC (Tinder, Match.com) rich. Spotify might see something as high as 20% logins, and the diminished amount of account sharing alone must make them a few million dollars extra. Theoretically, if Facebook had not censored game post spam on its network, Zynga would still be a huge, rich company. If only Zynga could have bought Facebook instead of all those little gaming companies...

By comparison, LinkedIn retired their single sign in button. When it was available, it may have represented less than 1% of logins on a business service website and app. LinkedIn-sourced users had no different LTV, and represented less than 2% of all users.

LinkedIn was probably overvalued before Microsoft bought it, radically so. LinkedIn had no way of legitimately realizing the 20% fees recruiters enjoy—and even if they did, those fees exist exclusively in the tech world, exclusively for a narrow part of the workforce, with no credible path to introducing those fees to the rest of employment recruiting. Considering LinkedIn's poor track record overall of the value of those users, what is Microsoft going to do with them instead?

A bunch of companies try this path and fail. For example, GoDaddy is trying the same thing: Buy companies (you've never heard of) to try to cross-sell between GoDaddy users and company users. They make acquisitions based on incorrectly extrapolated LTVs for like 100 accounts they intensively hand cross-sold pre-acquisition. Then GoDaddy discovers two things a year later: the actual LTV of their test cohort, which is wildly below their estimate, and the actual value of the remaining 99,900 of their acquired users, which is nothing. Even if you bought a zero-revenue startup for $100,000 and your cost per acquired user (CPA) is $1.00, your LTV is still near $0, so what did you earn?

I suspect this purchase isn't about users. I suspect major LinkedIn investors shopped around the company and financial-engineered a sophisticated kickback for the decision makers on the acquirer's end. Much like when Google purchased the Google Ventures-backed Nest and enriched a huge number of insiders at great shareholder expense, the acquisition team at Microsoft was probably duped into enriching a great deal of insiders too.

</comment><comment><USER186> Considering that MS also owns Skype, could we see them combining those two technologies into some kind of interview platform?

</comment><comment><USER187> Last time I was so perplexed with a valuation was back in 2007/2008 when BlackBerry was trading at over $100 per share.

</comment><comment><USER80> I think the important question is why did linkedIn want to sell itself .. they were not in as much trouble as Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER188> $26.2bn for a list of recruitment agencies. They could have bought the same data on the dark web for much cheaper...

</comment><comment><USER189> What is Microsoft hoping to gain from this?

<comment><USER190> Skype for business button on LI profiles. More stickiness for o365.

Data for Dynamics. People assume CRM here, and I tend to agree, but I wouldn't discount the ERP/supply-chain management software play. Microsoft seems to be more interested in manufacturing than marketing.

Slide share integration for PowerPoint/O365. More stickiness.

Lynda.com - increasing developer pool for C#/Xamarin, which in turn means more stickiness for Visual Studio, Azure, Windows and SQL Server, Dynamics families, SharePoint.

Lynda.com - increasing user base for productivity software.

Lynda.com - future play for HR training both content and technology.

A truckload of content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER191> When they write off the 26 billion in a few years the tax payer will be paying 40% of the purchase price.

<comment><USER192> top bracket of corp tax rate is 35%. And taking less money from a corp one year is not 'tay payer paying for it'. The federal government will take less money from msft, that is not the tax payer paying for 35% of the purchase price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER193> Ouch. Reid Hoffman's 11 percent stake in LinkedIn is going to result in a $1 billion tax bill.

<comment><USER194> Problems I would love to have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER195> What a surprise this is to hear! I didn't know LinkedIn was in the market to be acquired.

</comment><comment><USER130> Does anyone know why they are paying a 50% premium to closing price? That seems massive.

</comment><comment><USER196> Current market share price is of 132$ then why did Microsoft pay 90$ high? Any reason?

<comment><USER134> probably there are some information hidden behind scene.

</comment></comment><comment><USER197> If Microsoft buys LinkedIn, I wonder if Facebook will now try to enter that territory.

<comment><USER198> Facebook IS trying to enter that territory. Look up Facebook At Work. This should help to stifle that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER199> Linkedin is a great buy for Microsoft! Congratulations to my Linkedin friends. :)

</comment><comment><USER200> From now, when you logout of LinkedIn, you will be redirected to msn.com :P

</comment><comment><USER201> I'd like to see this valuation - this transaction looks shaky at best.

</comment><comment><USER202> Something something private information changing hands in buyouts...

</comment><comment><USER203> A leas they will fix the LinkedIN UI, that thing was psiing me off!!

</comment><comment><USER204> Found the best summary of today's events so far... [0]

"SEATTLE — In a last-ditch attempt to connect with consumers, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced on Monday that he had purchased LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in an all-cash deal. Founded in 2003, the social networking giant — which boasts more than 443 million professionals — makes it possible for users to "connect" with people they don't like enough to add on Facebook. 443 million of those "connections" were made early Monday morning, as Microsoft's Nadella attempted to fulfill a lifelong dream of having more internet friends than MySpace Tom. The deal, which had been in the works for months, came together only days after Microsoft placed a set of similar bids for Yahoo, Neopets, and Geocities in an effort to buy up the rest of 2005's hottest web properties. At $26.2B for 443M friends, Microsoft has answered a long-held question about the true cost of friendship: the answer? $59.14 USD."

[0] [https://medium.com/@draftedapp/microsoft-ceo- finds-26-2b-und...](https://medium.com/@draftedapp/microsoft-ceo- finds-26-2b-under-mattress-buys-website-779bf3bb3e3f)

<comment><USER205> Geocities is 1998. If you want 2005 try digg.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> I feel like I should cancel my LinkedIn account now. Hrm..

<comment><USER206> /me done. finally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER207> Too pricey. They could buy more spambots with less $$.

</comment><comment><USER208> I hope they don't do what they did for Nokia.

</comment><comment><USER209> Good idea to buy LinkedIn, but for $26 BILLION!

Isn't that a million times earnings? Way, way over valued. You could hire a team and ad agency to make a better LinkedIn for $10 million...

</comment><comment><USER210> Bye bye LinkedIn!

</comment><comment><USER211> Is Jeff Weiner photoshopped onto the pic?

</comment><comment><USER212> Why buy? Why didn't MS invest?

</comment><comment><USER213> Every user gets .net endorsements

</comment><comment><USER214> What does that mean to Scala?

<comment><USER215> I'm not aware of Linkedin maintaining any widely-used libraries or anything like that, so probably very little. (Hadn't they already vocally moved away from Scala and onto something newer and trendier?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER216> Why? Linkedin is kinda awful.

</comment><comment><USER217> > LinkedIn will retain its distinct brand, culture and independence.

Darnit, I thought there was hope for a second.

</comment><comment><USER173> wow, nice exit for LinkedIn. Microsoft now also owns Lynda.com .

</comment><comment><USER218> One word: Clippy

<comment><USER219> Except this time Clippy's serving ads.

And my documents/presentations/spreadsheets are going to be cross-referenced with Linked-In? Sounds like a mechanism to put me one click away from accidentally sending sensitive info to someone working for a competitor.

Nothing about this sounds "delightful" to me. It sounds intrusive and risky.

</comment></comment><comment><USER220> its not worth 26 million lol

</comment><comment><USER221> Two turkeys don't make an eagle

</comment><comment><USER222> PIF Reid Hoffman (Paid in FULL) ;-)

</comment><comment><USER223> very interesting news to say at least.

</comment><comment><USER224> impressive

</comment><comment><USER225> Satya Nadella has made a bold final attempt to stop LinkedIn from spamming him

<comment><USER93> Won't work. Instead LinkedIn will now infect the OS team, and before you know it you'll get LinkedIn notifications during boot.

<comment><USER226> 2 people want to add you to their professional network on LinkedIn. Abort, Retry, Fail?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER227> "Your career doesn't seem to respond anymore. Do you want to restart it now?"

<comment><USER228> * You haven't changed jobs in 3 years, sending out 40 applications for you. You are welcome. - Same team that did Windows 10 autoupdate

<comment><USER229> "Sent your resignation letter" seems like the more appropriate action.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER230> Between Windows constantly pestering and even trying to trick me to upgrade to Windows 10 and getting LinkedIn requests from people I've only ever met once this is truly a match made in hell.

<comment> FLUX-YOU Windows 10 LinkedIn Edition

Update your LinkedIn profile with shell context menus!

</comment></comment><comment><USER231> I have a friend request hanging there for the last couple of years and I can't accept it or reject it :) Maybe Microsoft will fix it...

</comment><comment><USER232> Awesome.... Sounds pretty interesting, Microsoft aacquired LinkedIn for $26B... Wao!!! Heavy amount.... Microsoft is progressing fine. Hope it would not be just like Nokia.

</comment><comment><USER233> Someone else must've been interested. Salesforce, maybe?

<comment><USER233> Thanks for the downvotes! Theory confirmed two days after I posted this:

[http://www.recode.net/2016/6/16/11958588/salesforce-also- mad...](http://www.recode.net/2016/6/16/11958588/salesforce-also-made-a-bid- for-linkedin-confirms-ceo-benioff-untitled)

</comment></comment><comment><USER234> Oh, I can just imagine how the process went at MS:

* Exec A: Social things are Good (coming to the conclusion about 10 years too late)

* Exec B: Shall we create our own Google+?

* Exec C: No, that didn't turn out that well for Google. Let's buy something existing.

* Exec B: Ok, I've Googled a list of top 10 social networking sites for sale, and ordered them by list price, but really we'll need to come up with a strategy first to make a good choice...

* Exec A: Booooring. Let's just buy the cheapest one and be done with it. What's the worst which could happen? Gimme a bonus.

To be honest, they're probably buying the users, not the product.

<comment><USER235> I imagine it was more like:

\- Microsoft has the money

\- LinkedIn is the biggest thing in recruiting (I don't especially like it either, but it is). I wouldn't personally hire someone via recruiters or LinkedIn, but I would hire someone via a recomendation from a contact I maintain on LinkedIn.

\- Microsoft makes business tools

\- There's a bunch of interesting opportunities for intrgating Dynamics, Yammer, and other MS tools with LinkedIn.

Actually looking forward to MS's UX folk cleaning up LinkedIn.

Edit: Nadella said re: how MS looks at acquisitions ([http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/13/11920306/microsoft-ceo- sat...](http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/13/11920306/microsoft-ceo-satya- nadella-linkedin-memo)) "Is this asset riding secular usage and technology trends?" \- anyone know what that means?

<comment><USER236> >Actually looking forward to MS's UX folk cleaning up LinkedIn.

This. This the only reason im excited about the acquisition. LinkedIn UX is awful.

What makes me nervous though, is some things could get worse. (skype has gone downhill ever since the acquisition i feel).

<comment><USER237> I used to have a normal Skype in Linux. Then migrated to live: type of account (AKA Outlook). Now I cannot even access my Skype anymore because the outlook/skype don't sync properly.

I'm slowly migrating away from any Microsoft product. Luckily I closed my Linkedin account a while back. This is my new Linkedin: [http://francisco.io/](http://francisco.io/) (my own website).

<comment><USER238> Your rich text editor demo is leading to a 404'd page [http://francisco.io/editor](http://francisco.io/editor). Your site is very nice btw

<comment><USER239> For what its worth, the Spacehelmet button that points to [http://spacehelmet.info](http://spacehelmet.info) also 404's. Otherwise a neat portfolio site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER240> Continuing my theory that Nadella doesn't know what he's doing. I don't think Microsoft learned anything from buying Yammer.

</comment><comment><USER241> My name is Beth this is for the ones who have been ripped off by this good for nothing scammers, If you ever are looking for an efficient hacker who offers various services which includes facebook, twitter , instagram, whatsapp, WeChat,Whatever services you may require legal or illegal, Ranging from Bank Jobs, Flipping cash, Criminal records, DMV, Taxes, if you are looking to get any hack espionage accomplished . need funds urgently ? need your grades changed ? thorough background check or Just Name it. This hacker really does offer top notch services and has been of great help to me and my friends ,coming from a very fulfilled and happy customer he is one of the best Blackhat hackers ouut there who is very feared you can contact him Via email.... email@example.com or by text +1 813 379 2141. . Do mention the name Beth as he can be very wary.

</comment><comment><USER242> Does this mean clippy is going to start offering me jobs?

<comment><USER79> If clippy makes a return, I for one back this move.

</comment></comment><comment><USER243> I'm reading many disparaging comments about this, but I bet if it were facebook or some other popular company favored by this group that made this purchase the comments would have a different tone.

<comment><USER244> Not really. Both are cancerous blights on the internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER245> MySpace 2.0

</comment><comment><USER246> good. disliked LinkedIn anyway

</comment><comment><USER247> Ok, Linkedin is definitely dead :p

</comment><comment> lloyd-christmas Sounds like Microsoft is going the Yahoo route.

</comment><comment><USER248> Well, there goes that neighbourhood.

</comment><comment><USER249> I think this will be a new source of memes.

</comment><comment><USER79> New headline... "Bloated, behind the times corporate buys bloated, barely functioning social network."

<comment><USER86> Man, if you think Microsoft are behind the times then you've not been keeping up with them. In the software development world Microsoft are about as with the teams as a company of their size could reasonably be.

<comment><USER250> They are ahead. Asynchronous first class language support is sooooo 2011!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER251> What a waste. What a waste. What a waste.

</comment><comment><USER252> how many of you use Microsoft OR Linkedin ? Upvote if result is: NO

<comment><USER253> There seems to be a rather common misconception surfacing on every single thread about Microsoft, which could be summarized like this:

HN User => !MS user && MS user => !HN user

<comment><USER254> Would "Mutually Exclusive" be a better summary?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER255> LinkedIn is a static and largely useless platform. I have been on it for many years, there has been no innovation, and I can fully understand why its share price has taken a beating. Microsoft are desperate and deluded. Who would want to own Microsoft shares - this company is finished, surely. If this doesn't indicate a bubble in tech, I don't know what does.

<comment><USER256> Assuming your premises are true (Microsoft is done, LinkedIn is done), this isn't evidence for a bubble. The stock of these two companies could be priced perfectly right for their current and potential profits, and yet they might also be doomed. This might indicate (again, given your premises) that Microsoft is looking to find new sources of revenue, which would result in raising their stock price.

By saying this indicates a bubble means you think LinkedIn and Microsoft are overvalued in some way. Whether or not that's true, this particular move isn't evidence of being overvalued.

<comment><USER255> Thanks for your considered response. You could well be right, but for the moment, I'd put a red-hot poker in my eye if LinkedIn is worth 26 big ones.

Long term, tech is a great place to be, but this is getting silly, surely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER257> Of course HN is mocking the deal like we know better without any form of analysis of the situation.

<comment><USER258> Isn't that a rather narrow minded reaction?

</comment></comment><comment><USER259> I circulated this to some of my friends and one came back thus:

So now, LinkedIn will turn SinkedIn !!

<comment><USER259> I'm kind of new here (long time lurker though), so would someone be kind enough to let me know why the down-votes on my comment above? That will help me know better when keep my trap shut... :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER129> I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn

[https://twitter.com/iamdevloper/status/714390085647511552](https://twitter.com/iamdevloper/status/714390085647511552)

</comment><comment><USER129> Coming to an inbox near you: "I'd like to add you to my professional network on Bing+"

[https://twitter.com/iamdevloper/status/742391687801147394](https://twitter.com/iamdevloper/status/742391687801147394)

</comment><comment><USER260> Anyone just get this message?

 _FYI, 15% savings on server

Hi x,

As a Decision Maker, you want to manage your IT resources efficiently to support the growth of your business. That is why we wanted to tell you about a special offer to help you realize huge cost savings and operational efficiencies:

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Click here to take advantage of this special one-time offer

Thanks, The Microsoft Small and Midsize Business Team_</comment>


Berlin Now Has a City-Run Recycling Department Store - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-17/to-cut-waste-berlin-opens-its-own-secondhand-shop <comment><USER2> There's an interesting idea here:

If we consider that in the U.S., many large tracts of mall real-estate, formerly occupied by retail shops and large department stores (e.g., Sears) are now empty, due to such factors as Amazon / online shopping and CoronaVirus / Covid-19 -- then _maybe one future potential use of this now derelict real- estate -- is that of large-scale "Recyling Department Stores"_, much like the one mentioned in this article...

</comment><comment><USER3> We have had state-owned second-hand stores all my life here (Scandinavia). I don't see any difference to the one in the article. The city even picks up items at you home or you could deliver them at recycling and garbage disposal areas. Broken things are often fixed and then sold too.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the most annoying part about finding a new job in tech? - <AUTHOR>

Is it spending the time to search for good positions?  Dealing with recruiters? Phone screens and interviews?  Something else? <comment><USER2> \- Useless HR droids that know nothing about the industry, yet are somehow qualified to filter resumes based upon useless things such as the amount of jobs per year, or if you have x years of skill at y tech (even if x years is greater then y tech has even existed)

\- Recruiters that are almost stalker like to get your resume....and then disappear into the ether.

\- Companies/recuriters that constantly are looking for employees for months at a time, yet won't budge on requirements, salary, or working conditions. Found this especially in the maritime provinces, but it does come up in larger markets as well.

\- Lack of communication. I get that some places are pretty busy, but at least a simple "hey if you hear nothing by x time, you probably didn't make the cut", or feedback after an interview to say "hey you didn't make the cut, this is the reason(s) why". We're (mostly) adults, and having a timetable and constructive analysis is always handy. Plus you never know, you could be hiring again, always good to leave potential future employees with a good memory of you. :)

\- Saying one thing during interviews, then completely another if you get a job offer. Like say, twenty thousand less a year, or remote work is not allowed even thought every other developer in the company is working off-site.

\- Over interviewing. Unless your'e applying for a C level position, or leading a large team at a megacorp, one interview is all you need. Having a three hour grill session for an intermediate developer position only to be told that there's more interviews after this is wasted effort. You're hiring a developer, not the next CEO of IBM.

\- Remote work is verbotin. This is probably just mine, but have found that employers that I qualify for, react to an inquiry of being able to telecommute akin to a first date after saying you have syphilis.

\- Finding a great job, in a tech you want to use, in an industry you'd be very interested in, that pays well and has great benefits, only to find that you don't have the right citizenship. (Happens all the time with me when I search for remote gigs. Tons of work out there.....if you're American)

As you can tell, I've been looking around for a while :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Clueless HR. For example, I'd been writing air traffic control software for a contractor of Lockheed Martin. When that contract finished, I applied to do the same at Thales and was turned down on the basis that there were "too many jobs" on my résumé. I explained that there were a lot of jobs because I was a contractor but they still refused to even see me. That was a big shock as I was told I got the LM job because I had a lot of experience. They wanted someone who had been programming for more than twenty years, which is fair enough when you're trying to avoid flying one plane straight into another one.

<comment><USER4> Unrelated but out of curiosity, what language is most air traffic control software written? (or what language would you be writing in do you think?)

<comment><USER3> We did ours with Linux and C.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Dealing with recruiters who don't understand what a company is actually looking for can be pretty frustrating.

<comment><USER6> No more that dealing with recruiters who don't know how and who really recruit (aka without any modern technology knowledge)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The all day (perhaps even multi-day) technical screening, covering data structures and algorithms, threading, sql, database transactions and locking, and often a few branches of math, getting shuttled from interviewer to interviewer for a fresh grilling.

I don't like this, and I don't consider it a good use of anyone's time, but the deal killer is the "homework assignment", which forces me to spend 4-8 hours but allows them to screen me out in 15 minutes if they don't like my code.

As my high school history teacher said to a class of unmotivated late second semester seniors - "I'm not going to waste my time on you if you won't waste your time on me."

</comment><comment><USER8> Recruiters bombarding you with crap jobs.

I wonder if there might be a market for a recruiting board that has a "Do not contact me about" feature...

</comment><comment><USER9> startups that look for "superstars", "ninjas" etc... thinking they will be the new Facebook starting from tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER10> HR's don't recognize talent and tell you they have fixed salary bands which are solely based on years of experience.

<comment><USER11> Yes. What if the talent starts making their own bands on the performance solely based on how much the company pays. How would they feel about that? Most of their tactics can be reversed.

</comment></comment><comment> alok-g I think it is the weaknesses of the screening process at the other end. A lot of good applications go nowhere because they get little to no attention. It is still too hard to separate good candidates from the plethora of the applications received. This partly comes from missing good indicators of performance (See [1] for example).

While performance lacks good measures, compensation is quantitative as it is. This leads to misjudgements on quality-vs.-cost tradeoff impacting both the potential employers and good candidates.

[1] [https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130620142512-3...](https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130620142512-35894743-on- gpas-and-brain-teasers-new-insights-from-google-on-recruiting-and-hiring)

</comment><comment><USER12> Because of your current job you are not up to date with latest stuff.

</comment><comment><USER13> 1\. People not getting back to you quickly.</comment>