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High Fives at LinkedIn in the Wall Street Journal Blog
- petewarden 16y agoI have to say, I was amazed at how nice an atmosphere there was when I visited LinkedIn a couple of months back. I was expecting something a bit stuffy, considering their market and somewhat conservative approach to innovation, but the people in the hallways and lunch room seemed genuinely relaxed and happy. It especially struck me after visiting Facebook a few hours earlier and finding it somewhat grim. All very subjective of course, but it makes me think this is a bit of real fun, not a horrific corporate attempt at 'flair'.
- strlen 16y agoThe high-five thing started completely from the bottom up, by Russell Jurney (rjurney here and on Twitter). Jeff was over in analytics area (on an unrelated matter, iirc) and happened to step into an impromptu-created high-five zone and has adopted it. The atmosphere surprised me as well (given the fact LinkedIn's a professional network) when I first interviewed and later joined. Another fun thing I noticed, check out the company guid for LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/companies/1337 http://www.linkedin.com/companies/1337
- zavulon 16y agoWow. If LinkedIn was public, I would SO short them after reading that.
- strlen 16y agoI'm sure many have done so with Google stock after reading about free lunches, bean bag chairs and noticing the April Fool's pranks.
- howradical 16y agoOh wow...
- exit 16y ago> Anyone who walks through the square, which is nearly impossible to avoid, must give a high five to others nearby, the sign declares. i wonder what the function of this is. to me it's just incredibly oppressive and motivates passive aggressiveness. but maybe the idea is precisely to exclude people like me.
- rjurney 16y agoWould you care to clarify how shenanigans can be oppressive? The signs are extremely formal, listing many regulations to the High Five Incentive Program. The zone is huge and unavoidable. The universal reaction is laughter.
- pvdm 16y agoIt is oppressive just like Hawaiian shirt days are oppressive. Pasted-up fake smiles demotivates.
- rjurney 16y agoThese smiles aren't fake. People are excited every day at LinkedIn, or the high five program would suck.
- BrentRitterbeck 16y agorjurney, just imagine if you were in an environment that was a little fun every now and then. Wouldn't that be absolutely terrible? I mean all the high-fives and smiles--that would be downright awful!
- exit 16y agoit really would be awful. look up compulsory positive thinking in communist societies.
- BrentRitterbeck 16y agoThis is taking an argument to the extreme. Placing a red box on the floor does not suddenly turn the whole place into North Korea.
- blizkreeg 16y agoUgh. This sounds like something that would be done at Yahoo than LinkedIn. Like that ad campaign they ran: It's Y!ou or something of that sort.