For someone who isn't a programmer, and doesn't have much of anything to put in a GitHub profile, LinkedIn is useful. For one, people use it, including startup

For someone who isn't a programmer, and doesn't have much of anything to put in a GitHub profile, LinkedIn is useful. For one, people use it, including startup founders (it's one of those things where you can not like something, but if people use it more than the thing you like better, it doesn't help). For another, it's standardized (maybe not well, but it's still somewhere you can go and be reasonably informed as to someone's background, without having to figure out what is going on in their custom URL (a lot of times, the personal website is great. It also is confusing sometimes when you want a summary that you can grasp in less than a minute, especially if it requires clicking around). Finally, you can see how you are connected to someone very easily, which for me, has been really useful in both finding warm leads and in helping refer friends places that I was unaware I had relationships with employees. I'm tech-savvy, but not a programmer. LinkedIn is a useful tool that I rarely use. However, when I've needed it, it's done what I wanted it to do.