Ep 540 ~ The Story of LinkedIn with the Co-Founder Konstantin Guericke

Listeners, welcome to the show! Today, have a pioneer from the early days of social networking and one of the co-founders of LinkedIn on the podcast! We are going to get behind the mind and the story of how the world’s largest online business network got its start!

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He co-founded LinkedIn with Reid Hoffman, Allen Blue, Jean-Luc Vaillant and Eric Ly, and his name is Konstantin Guericke.  LinkedIn went public in 2011 for $4 billion and was purchased by Microsoft in 2016 for $26 billion. 

 

Recognizing the potential of the Internet with its vast networking possibilities, Konstantin and his future co-founder Reid Hoffman developed the idea for LinkedIn.

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Konstantin led the company’s marketing to profitability. For the first few years, he focused on positioning/branding, viral marketing, user engagement emails and media relations. Later, he also managed LinkedIn Groups, international expansion and the corporate sales team.

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In May of 2003, LinkedIn was officially released. They had 81,000 users by the end of that year, over ½ a million by their 12-month mark and 4.5 million users at the end of their second year. 

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We’re going to dive into LinkedIn’s story with Konstatin and how he has been making an impact in the entrepreneurial world since he left LinkedIn.