LinkedIn CEO donating his multi-million stock package to staff

3 Mar 2016

Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn CEO, is a generous kind of guy, via Wikimedia Commons

LinkedIn knows how to keep staff happy, or at least it tries to. The social media giant’s recent jump into ‘well, that sounds lovely’ sees CEO Jeff Weiner forgo his annual stock package, passing it on to staff instead.

Yesterday, the company filed financial documents with Wiener’s compensation package notable by its absence, with Re/Code revealing LinkedIn’s plans to redistribute it throughout the staff.

“Jeff did not receive an equity package this year at his request,” said a LinkedIn spokesperson. “He asked the Compensation Committee to take the stock package he would have received and put it back in the pool for employees.”

It’s a weird time for Weiner and his company, with its most recent financial results in December seeing revenues skyrocket by 34pc but, due to 2016 predictions, share prices plummeted.

LinkedIn forecast 2016 revenues to come in at $3.6bn, but this is lower than the $3.9bn analysts were expecting. So this stock redistribution could be seen as a way to reassure staff that things aren’t all bad (the shares have yet to recover).

“We are the same company we were the day before our earnings announcement,” said Weiner at a company meeting. “I’m the same CEO I was the day before our earnings announcement. You’re the same team you were the day before our earnings announcement.”

It isn’t just LinkedIn that has tried to improve staff morale in this way, with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey doing something similar last year when his company, too, was faltering.

Late last year, LinkedIn announced a major expansion to its Irish operations, with 100 new jobs soon to bring its total Dublin workforce to 1,000.

Gordon Hunt was a journalist with Silicon Republic

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