Networks are not meant to scale. Here's what works.
LinkedIn is not a network. By design.
If you Google “LinkedIn is dead” you will find myriad think-pieces lamenting the ways that LinkedIn is no longer a professional networking site.
Over half of the top search results are posted on...LinkedIn.
I find this wildly amusing. But not at all surprising.
LinkedIn is a social media platform that loves to call itself a professional networking platform even as it drives its own revenue not by cultivating network connections but by optimizing and incentivizing broadcast content and engagement metrics. And we won't even go into the AI obsession at the moment.
LinkedIn also loves to tout its Vision, Mission, and Values.
LinkedIn was founded by Reid Hoffman, a member of the "PayPal Mafia" alongside Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and other PayPal co-founders who went on to found companies including Palantir, SpaceX, YouTube, Yelp, Affirm, and Yammer.
LinkedIn launched May 5, 2003 with the initial tagline, "Relationships Matter."
Hoffman stepped down as CEO in 2007 but retained his majority stake as the largest single shareholder in the company. In 2016, following a decade of hyper-growth and scale, LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft for one of the largest technology acquisitions in history in an all-cash deal for $26.2 billion. Reid Hoffman walked away with $2.8 billion.
At present, LinkedIn has 1.3 billion people on the site. It generates $17.8 billion in revenue a year with premium paid subscriptions and AI hiring agents driving the majority of its revenue growth, and continues to be touted as the powerhouse professional networking site.
Back to that vision: how close are we to creating economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce?
Beyond professional performance
I'm not here to just trash LinkedIn, as tempting as that may be.
The point is that professional networking at scale has co-opted our very real need for economic opportunity, networked connections, and sustainability.
Relationships do matter and we need them now more than ever.
My LinkedIn feed has changed drastically in the last few years. I'm not just talking about the AI slop, the proliferation of LinkedInfluencers, the obsessive commenting for reach and engagement, or what some look down upon as personal and political content.
People are starting to drop the veil. They are being honest.
They are posting about labor-intensive and impersonal hiring processes, ghosting and dismal communication from hiring teams, applying to hundreds of job postings and getting minimal in-person interviews. They are posting about taking massive salary cuts and incredibly low salaries for senior leadership roles. They are posting that they don't know how they are going to financially survive. They are violating the unspoken rules of how to show up on a corporate professional networking site that wants to make you more productive by saying, plainly: I need help.
For every public declaration, there are countless others silently commiserating.
We don't live in a network of 1.3 billion people. We live in local interconnected networks. That is where we build relationships that matter. That is where we have the most power to help each other. That is where we will cultivate economic opportunity, generative connections, and sustainability.
Here are a few examples from my network of people doing what extractive versions of professional networking cannot.
Network builders in my network
I am a member of Rad Comms Network, a thriving community of practice of radical communicators designed to be the “infrastructure that ties political opportunity to collective action among social justice communicators.” Founded by Shanelle Matthews – academic, activist, narrative strategist and most recently co-editor of the anthology Liberation Stories: Building Narrative Power for 21st Century Social Movements – the network is cultivated through an active listserv where folks amplify their work, invite collaboration, share job openings/consultant opportunities, and develop and share resources to build capacity, narrative power, and collective action.
In addition to being a founder at Both/And Solutions and Co-Lead at Elemental – catalyzing capacity and philanthropic resources to build narrative power in social justice movements – Mandy regularly amplifies job postings in social justice and philanthropy on LinkedIn. She has amassed over 112K followers, anointing her with the well-earned title of “job fairy.” You can follow her there and support her labor through BuyMeACoffee. I connected to Mandy on LinkedIn years ago around narrative strategy work and through that connection she introduced me to the RadComms Network.
Arielle Rebekah is a radical marketing and comms professional who curates a Remote Jobs Listserv — a robust daily digest of remote work-from-home job postings which you can join and support through their Patreon based on your financial capacity on their Patreon. Arielle and I connected through the RadComms Network and are cooking up further collaborations — stay tuned.
Stephanie Schacht is a sociologist and founder of Purpose Ops consultancy and curates a weekly Substack roundup of Senior Leaders for Social Justice Job Postings with Director+ level, $100K + salary jobs. I connected with Stephanie on Substack where you can check out and subscribe to support her efforts.
These are the kinds of networks Root Commons is built to cultivate. Root Commons believes in cooperation over competition. We are here to be a network among networks — to amplify, cross-pollinate, and collaborate.
Relationships matter
While we are already interconnected and interdependent, every element of our extractive capitalist structure has choked off our capacity to cultivate localized networks with sustainable infrastructure to meet our collective needs.
Networks need curating and tending. They require time, labor, and resources.
Root Commons is here to be a catalyst and connector to strengthen power, partnerships, and capacity to build the work connections we need to create livelihoods where we all thrive.
Join the Commons
If this resonates here is how you can plug in and connect.
Subscribe for Free👇🏼 Get new posts like this delivered to your Inbox along with invitations to virtual and IRL Root Commons meetups.
Join the Anti Networking Networking Club 👇🏼 Learn more about our member network designed to directly connect social justice and social impact organizational leaders, strategists, and consultants to build collaborative, cooperative, and financially sustainable values-aligned work.
Tell me about you. 🗣️ I would love to know more about who you are, what you need most in your work and network, and what you would like to see here at Root Commons. Hit reply and introduce yourself!