6 ms·

Well done Jordan, this is a good example of how insincere company culture, which endorses email spam and dark design patterns, WILL backfire. In a company with

by wellboy 13y ago

Well done Jordan, this is a good example of how insincere company culture, which endorses email spam and dark design patterns, WILL backfire. In a company with great culture, this kind of project would have been caught by the various stakeholders of this project and it would not have been released. However, at Linkedin, the engineers and product managers having learned over the years that these kind of things are "fine" and can be looked over as long as the feature brings more engagement, more traffic --> more money, made this dodgy product slip through the cracks of Linkedin. I don't know how many times Linkedin has been on hackernews for email spam, when will they finally get it? I talked to the main growth hacker of Linkedin a while ago who does all the email marketing and asked him if it's not a bit dodgy what they are doing. He smirked and told me how much these strategies boost engagement at Linkedin and how much money they make. This is not something to be proud of, it's like being proud of having stolen 10 kids a lollipop today. Everybody can steal lollipops, build a drug cartel or big company with dodgy maneuvers, because then it is not about how gifted they were, it's how deceitful. That is just not impressive. However, it's insanely impressive to build a company without being dodgy, but just by making a great product that your users love. It's one of the most basic rules of growing a company that pursuing short-term gains (1-2 years) with dodgy maneuvers, directly translate into long-terms losses in the 10-fold numbers of the short term gains. This is not too hard to understand, is the executive team of Linkedin not intelligent enough to get that?

raganwald 13y ago
"It's one of the most basic rules of growing a company that pursuing short-term gains (1-2 years) with risky maneuvers, directly translate into long-terms losses in the 10-fold numbers of the short term gains." That may or may not be true, but my basic position is that I want to do business with people who don't care whether dodgy practices will or will not make money in the short, medium, or long term, they have scruples that outweigh their venality.
hdevalence 13y ago
If we really think that it's not something to be proud of, we could stop calling these people "growth hackers" and start calling them spammers. Edit: to clarify, "these people" refers to the type of people the parent was complaining about, who use deception and dark patterns, not to all people working on growth in general. Making the distinction is what I'm arguing for.
- wellboy 13y ago
  Well you know there are also really great/impressive ways to growth hack, such as Noah Kagan who grew Appsumo with his really cool emails that people loved or the guy who made Dropbox go viral by giving 250MB additional data for each new person that signed up.
  - nwh 13y ago
    That being said, LinkedIn are neither of those. They are just spammers.
  - bobytables 13y ago
    Some would argue that Appsumo is sleazy, spammy and dark
- bulatb 13y ago
  "Growth spammers" has a ring to it.
  - staringispolite 13y ago
    "Growth slackers", perhaps. You know, because rhyming :)
jmathai 13y ago
While I don't disagree in principal I'd wager to say that LinkedIn wouldn't have seen the success they have without using these tactics.
HaloZero 13y ago
So I'm still a bit confused, what is it exactly that's shady and spammy with "Intro". The basic idea is rapportive right? Get the linkein information about the person emailing you. Is the implementation that's shady/spammy? I don't see how Intro isn't useful for recruiters to instantly have the linkedin profile of the person their emailing available to them on their phone. That way it's a quick reference check.
- priley 13y ago
  You can do that in secure ways too. We did that (another YC company) with Ark Mail: http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/13/ark-is-like-a-rapportive-mobile-app/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/13/ark-is-like-a-rapportive-mo...
  - girvo 13y ago
    That's actually a really neat way of tackling the problem, but it does require people to change habits and use Ark instead of Mail. So while Intro seems to have less friction, you have to give up privacy (HAH. Email and privacy always makes me laugh) to achieve it, which does suck. Shame there wasn't a cooler way to try and handle it by only using headers or something, rather than MITM the whole damned email stack. Ark is neat though. Out of curiosity, how do you handle double notifications? As in, I get a new email, now I've got a notification in Mail and Ark? Or does Ark replace Mail entirely?
- dsl 13y ago
  The shady part: The way they implemented it allows them to read every single email you send and receive, and that is not obvious to the average user. The spammy part: They toss LinkedIn ads on your emails to other people after you hit send.
  - girvo 13y ago
    Well, in fairness, so can Google (assuming Gmail), etc. etc. The ads bit is a bit shit though.
cmccabe 13y ago
For some reason, a few people at HN seem to have a hard-on for criticizing LinkedIn. I never hear the same criticism of Facebook or Twitter here, even though their privacy policies are just as bad, or worse in many cases, and they also send bulk email. I get spammed by all the social networks I've joined, and even by a few that I didn't join. I get mail from every newspaper or magazine I've ever subscribed to, and many that I never have. Condemning one business for doing this while praising another is just hypocrisy.
- DanBC 13y ago
  > I never hear the same criticism of Facebook [...] here Facebook is regularly criticised, often fiercely, for their invasive privacy policies.
  - austinz 13y ago
    As are Google and Apple (albeit not always for privacy). I think the only oft-mentioned companies I've seen that consistently get better-than-neutral sentiment are Tesla and SpaceX, although there are probably others I'm forgetting.
    - girvo 13y ago
      And that's because Musk is the closest we can get to a tech "rock-star" (ignoring the Blizzard guys who are actual rock-stars and play in a sweet metal band).
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- grey-area 13y ago
  I never hear the same criticism of Facebook or Twitter here, even though their privacy policies are just as bad, or worse in many cases, and they also send bulk email. Intercepting email and inserting content is quantitatively different from sending bulk email. I think this programme is being criticised because it intercepts people's mail and inserts content - that's very different from receiving mail and leads to insecurity on several levels (they see your mail, sharing passwords, getting used to inserted content which can then be imitated for phishing). Also people do criticise FB and Twitter here too, but the objection is not spamming.
pclark 13y ago
I really don't understand how you can connect the dots of LinkedIn's (admittedly crappy) marketing emails and Intro existing. It seems quite simple really: People loved Rapportive, people wanted Rapportive outside of GMail, Rapportive delivered. > It's one of the most basic rules of growing a company that pursuing short-term gains (1-2 years) with dodgy maneuvers, directly translate into long-terms losses in the 10-fold numbers of the short term gains. This is not too hard to understand, is the executive team of Linkedin not intelligent enough to get that? http://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-stock-performance-2012-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-stock-performance-20... Amazingly you've managed to crap not only on the Intro team, not only on the Intro team and LinkedIn executives, but every single LinkedIn employee – please tell me more about how to build this great culture you champion.
- pinaceae 13y ago
  don't be evil.
  - tonyplee 13y ago
    The company that used that slogan had felt "the power of the dark side." :-)
- dsl 13y ago
  I've said it before on HN (and was attacked for it), but I will say it again. LinkedIn is not a tech company, it is a bunch of business people who hired technologists to build a website. Sure, lots of good tech has been open sourced by LinkedIn employees, but none of them sit in decision making capacities (or Intro would not exist). THAT is the culture problem.
  - PakG1 13y ago
    You seem to be implying that tech companies can have a higher moral ground. They're still run by people. Technologists can still be culpable even if they're in positions of authority precisely because they are people. Any other way of thinking is a gross over-generalization of people's ability and desire to do the right thing. Besides, even if they aren't in the positions of authority, technologists can still be culpable. I thought we already had enough examples in history of culpable people who were "simply following orders" to render such types of discussions moot.
afterburner 13y ago
"It's one of the most basic rules of growing a company that pursuing short-term gains (1-2 years) with dodgy maneuvers" They're just copying the people in the financial industry. And the people involved made very nice sums of money, so their intelligence was successfully used to their own personal benefit. Maybe the stock runup has made it such that they think they're just squeezing the last few drops out of this before they fully cash out. This is pure speculation of course, but I gather this scenario is a risk with any company that has a lot of hype and such employee exit paths.
- wellboy 13y ago
  Good point, it's probably that no one is there anymore who cares about the long-term mission of Linkedin. Reid Hoffman is rich now anyway why would he care. The reason for that is probably also though that Linkedin is not a passion product. It's not that their employees/founders are super passionate about connecting employees to employers, they are passionate about it making money. It's a bit understandable though, it's not easy to have a really strong passion for Linkedin or its mission.
newman314 13y ago
So who is this "main growth hacker"? Sidebar: What the heck does "main growth hacker" even supposed to mean? It blows my mind when people start coming up with new names for what they do. "Senior sanitation engineer" etc.

by wellboy 13y ago

raganwald 13y ago

"It's one of the most basic rules of growing a company that pursuing short-term gains (1-2 years) with risky maneuvers, directly translate into long-terms losses in the 10-fold numbers of the short term gains." That may or may not be true, but my basic position is that I want to do business with people who don't care whether dodgy practices will or will not make money in the short, medium, or long term, they have scruples that outweigh their venality.

hdevalence 13y ago

If we really think that it's not something to be proud of, we could stop calling these people "growth hackers" and start calling them spammers. Edit: to clarify, "these people" refers to the type of people the parent was complaining about, who use deception and dark patterns, not to all people working on growth in general. Making the distinction is what I'm arguing for.

wellboy 13y ago
Well you know there are also really great/impressive ways to growth hack, such as Noah Kagan who grew Appsumo with his really cool emails that people loved or the guy who made Dropbox go viral by giving 250MB additional data for each new person that signed up.
- nwh 13y ago
  That being said, LinkedIn are neither of those. They are just spammers.
- bobytables 13y ago
  Some would argue that Appsumo is sleazy, spammy and dark
bulatb 13y ago
"Growth spammers" has a ring to it.
- staringispolite 13y ago
  "Growth slackers", perhaps. You know, because rhyming :)

jmathai 13y ago

While I don't disagree in principal I'd wager to say that LinkedIn wouldn't have seen the success they have without using these tactics.

HaloZero 13y ago

So I'm still a bit confused, what is it exactly that's shady and spammy with "Intro". The basic idea is rapportive right? Get the linkein information about the person emailing you. Is the implementation that's shady/spammy? I don't see how Intro isn't useful for recruiters to instantly have the linkedin profile of the person their emailing available to them on their phone. That way it's a quick reference check.

priley 13y ago
You can do that in secure ways too. We did that (another YC company) with Ark Mail: http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/13/ark-is-like-a-rapportive-mobile-app/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/13/ark-is-like-a-rapportive-mo...
- girvo 13y ago
  That's actually a really neat way of tackling the problem, but it does require people to change habits and use Ark instead of Mail. So while Intro seems to have less friction, you have to give up privacy (HAH. Email and privacy always makes me laugh) to achieve it, which does suck. Shame there wasn't a cooler way to try and handle it by only using headers or something, rather than MITM the whole damned email stack. Ark is neat though. Out of curiosity, how do you handle double notifications? As in, I get a new email, now I've got a notification in Mail and Ark? Or does Ark replace Mail entirely?
dsl 13y ago
The shady part: The way they implemented it allows them to read every single email you send and receive, and that is not obvious to the average user. The spammy part: They toss LinkedIn ads on your emails to other people after you hit send.
- girvo 13y ago
  Well, in fairness, so can Google (assuming Gmail), etc. etc. The ads bit is a bit shit though.

cmccabe 13y ago

For some reason, a few people at HN seem to have a hard-on for criticizing LinkedIn. I never hear the same criticism of Facebook or Twitter here, even though their privacy policies are just as bad, or worse in many cases, and they also send bulk email. I get spammed by all the social networks I've joined, and even by a few that I didn't join. I get mail from every newspaper or magazine I've ever subscribed to, and many that I never have. Condemning one business for doing this while praising another is just hypocrisy.

DanBC 13y ago
> I never hear the same criticism of Facebook [...] here Facebook is regularly criticised, often fiercely, for their invasive privacy policies.
- austinz 13y ago
  As are Google and Apple (albeit not always for privacy). I think the only oft-mentioned companies I've seen that consistently get better-than-neutral sentiment are Tesla and SpaceX, although there are probably others I'm forgetting.
  - girvo 13y ago
    And that's because Musk is the closest we can get to a tech "rock-star" (ignoring the Blizzard guys who are actual rock-stars and play in a sweet metal band).
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
grey-area 13y ago
I never hear the same criticism of Facebook or Twitter here, even though their privacy policies are just as bad, or worse in many cases, and they also send bulk email. Intercepting email and inserting content is quantitatively different from sending bulk email. I think this programme is being criticised because it intercepts people's mail and inserts content - that's very different from receiving mail and leads to insecurity on several levels (they see your mail, sharing passwords, getting used to inserted content which can then be imitated for phishing). Also people do criticise FB and Twitter here too, but the objection is not spamming.

pclark 13y ago

I really don't understand how you can connect the dots of LinkedIn's (admittedly crappy) marketing emails and Intro existing. It seems quite simple really: People loved Rapportive, people wanted Rapportive outside of GMail, Rapportive delivered. > It's one of the most basic rules of growing a company that pursuing short-term gains (1-2 years) with dodgy maneuvers, directly translate into long-terms losses in the 10-fold numbers of the short term gains. This is not too hard to understand, is the executive team of Linkedin not intelligent enough to get that? http://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-stock-performance-2012-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-stock-performance-20... Amazingly you've managed to crap not only on the Intro team, not only on the Intro team and LinkedIn executives, but every single LinkedIn employee – please tell me more about how to build this great culture you champion.

pinaceae 13y ago
don't be evil.
- tonyplee 13y ago
  The company that used that slogan had felt "the power of the dark side." :-)
dsl 13y ago
I've said it before on HN (and was attacked for it), but I will say it again. LinkedIn is not a tech company, it is a bunch of business people who hired technologists to build a website. Sure, lots of good tech has been open sourced by LinkedIn employees, but none of them sit in decision making capacities (or Intro would not exist). THAT is the culture problem.
- PakG1 13y ago
  You seem to be implying that tech companies can have a higher moral ground. They're still run by people. Technologists can still be culpable even if they're in positions of authority precisely because they are people. Any other way of thinking is a gross over-generalization of people's ability and desire to do the right thing. Besides, even if they aren't in the positions of authority, technologists can still be culpable. I thought we already had enough examples in history of culpable people who were "simply following orders" to render such types of discussions moot.

afterburner 13y ago

"It's one of the most basic rules of growing a company that pursuing short-term gains (1-2 years) with dodgy maneuvers" They're just copying the people in the financial industry. And the people involved made very nice sums of money, so their intelligence was successfully used to their own personal benefit. Maybe the stock runup has made it such that they think they're just squeezing the last few drops out of this before they fully cash out. This is pure speculation of course, but I gather this scenario is a risk with any company that has a lot of hype and such employee exit paths.

wellboy 13y ago
Good point, it's probably that no one is there anymore who cares about the long-term mission of Linkedin. Reid Hoffman is rich now anyway why would he care. The reason for that is probably also though that Linkedin is not a passion product. It's not that their employees/founders are super passionate about connecting employees to employers, they are passionate about it making money. It's a bit understandable though, it's not easy to have a really strong passion for Linkedin or its mission.

newman314 13y ago

So who is this "main growth hacker"? Sidebar: What the heck does "main growth hacker" even supposed to mean? It blows my mind when people start coming up with new names for what they do. "Senior sanitation engineer" etc.