emily: he says he never aspired to be ceo, yet, now finds companyrunning a aiming to prove wall street wrong. it was a match made in silicon valley have been. he became the ceo he never expected to be. hoffman stayed on as chairman. its biggestes

challenge yet, so big, he donated his own stock bonus to his employees. linkedin ceo, jeff wieder. great to have you. we will start with the elephant in the room, after the first quarter report, stocks plummeted. it still has not recovered. if the magnitude of the reaction there? say if it isto there. it is a market. a surprise.s when you look at the core elements of our business, they look healthy. when you look at north american field cells, growth has remained consistent. thesored up dates, still

fastest growing business we have on scale. post the launch of our five ship on mobile, we have seen in a engagement onsed mobile and desktop. emily: do you think there is something they don't get -- that investors are not understanding? jeff: i think it is expectations. companies that experience hyper growth, there is a natural inclination to extrapolate those rates out over time. in the history of every hyper growth company there comes a point when expectations of start toor investors outstrip the business. isly: the analyst concern there are various pieces about

linkedin that was wrong. they thought you were a fast growth company, but you are a slow growth company. what is right? jeff: i think it is all relative. growing at 30%, in the mid-20's, that is all healthy growth from any measure. emily: you gave a rousing speech to employees saying linkedin is the same company an it was before happened. how does jeff weiner the hers and about this, not the ceo, but you. does it sting? jeff: there was some surprise. you want to make sure you are there for the people who better most areas are we still able to create value for our customers? nothing whatsoever has changed in that regard. you want to make sure that our employees are ok. there are number of us who have worked at companies that have gone through similar things. some of the most valuable

companies in the world through significant corrections. they never lose sight of the long-term sense of purpose or vision. it is about continuing to execute. that is where we want to continue to be focused. "linkedin is at best a business card holder, and, at worst, spam you go how do you spam."to that -- how do you react to that? offeringhink our core has never been stronger. we continue to see gains in engagement. that is what it is all about. emily: do you think you can read celery growth? over that is the objective time as we continue to execute

you want to build into opportunities. emily: has this impacted more out at all? jeff: if anything, it brings people together. you meet these challenges head on and you are successful in recognizing that nothing fundamental has changed. i think the stronger the team becomes, the stronger we become as a company. emily: you have talked about compassionate management. talk about what you apply that. jeff: i try to apply in every interaction. more broadly defined, within a work environment, it does not have to be limited to alleviating suffering. it can be wherever i can help you. all too often you are going to be in discussions throughout the day with coworkers, colleagues, andle outside the company

you will disagree. more often than not people the fairy's intention. that could be the furthest thing from the person spine. they could be having a bad day. you may have triggered something in them that happened long before they met you. you may be talking about something that they are not knowledgeable about and they don't want to show that phone or ability. there could be a whole host of reasons. emily: some of the most successful ceos have been ruthless, like steve jobs elon musk. they are known for being not compassionate. i think different styles for different people. you have to understand what works for you. it starts with being authentic

to yourself. what worked for steve and what works for elon, and people like that, may not work for other people who try to employ that style. i think it's pens. personally, i find that taking the time to understand what you are trying to accomplish and how i can help you works better than projecting my own worldview on you. i expected my team, 12-14 years ago, for the most part to do things the way i did them. that will lead to nothing but frustration. emily: your relation with the founder of linkedin has been called one of the happiest partnerships and business history. what is it that you think makes it work so well between the two of you?

your relationship with reid hoffman, the founder of linkedin, has been called one of the happiest partnerships in business. jeff: i had not heard that superlative yet. you thinkt is it that

works so well between the two of you? jeff: there is a lot of mutual respect, and we were friends before this happened. if you ask him a question, he will tell you a story sometimes for great him the way i tell the story. one of the most frequently asked questions i got when i started was what is my relationship like with read. i think that was code for what kind of drama is there from the founder and former ceo to the newly hired ceo. there was no drama. realize is iidn't him, i join in spite of joined because of him and the opportunity to work together. he is one of the most thoughtful people in the world. emily: what happens when you disagree? never disagree.

we have disagreed on a couple of occasions. there always related to personnel. it is never related to objective things about the business, the strategy. emily: what happened? jeff: there was interesting learning. that will remain between the two of us. emily: you say you never aspired to be ceo. how do you become ceo if you ?ever aspired to it chuckle jeff: for me, it was never about title of ceo, it was about sense of purpose. emily: you have given a lot of thought to the future of the workforce and how it is changing. become amployment has significant issue. in certain european countries you have unemployment hovering

around 50%. people become disenfranchised, they feel like they don't have a voice, and that is one path start to happen. you have the increasing fragmentation of work. people can start to set their own hours. emily: let's talk about that. how does linkedin account for people who are freelancing or have multiple jobs? jeff: a lot of people like that have their profile on linkedin because that is how they represent their identity to the world. emily: do you think it is a trendous trend, this towards freelancing? jeff: i don't know if i would say it is dangerous per se, but clearly things are changing. we'll have to revisit the way

companies operate. the extent to which it is mandated and the company has to base it in a formal facilitates the way people are able to generate benefits. this will continue to of all. what is clear is if we continue to apply the legacy way of doing things in a new environment and economy, that will be to some consequences that do some damage. ingly: you say that creat economic opportunity is the greatest challenge of our time. women are still greatly underrepresented in technology. ?y is that jeff: i think you have a

situation. improve, itts to will grow. with regard to what happens once the career starts, i think it is important to recognize unconscious bias and where people are making choices, in terms of promotions, pay that are not explicitly being german objective, in terms of treating people fairly, but by virtue of relating to people like the decision-maker. the more cognizant we become that we have a tendency to gravitate towards people like ourselves in the unintended consequences of that, the faster we can solve some of those issues. emily: women represent 30% of leadership roles and 20% of

technical. are you happy with that? jeff: happy, no. is it moving in the right direction, yes. emily: would you advocate affirmative action or hiring women just to see what happens? jeff: i don't think we should be hiring people to see what happens or hiring people in a way that reduces the bar. i think we should hire the best possible person for the role. one of the things we can all do to improve diverse the is employee techniques like the roomy role. they are not mandating you have to hire these kinds of people, what they are mandating is you need to interview people that is and moreative of inclusive of the population your drawing from. they have had amazing success with regard to improvements of

diversity and inclusion because that. emily: how do you make sure linkedin is not the next yahoo!? do you worry about the company. ♪

emily: you spent a lot of years at yahoo!. i'm sure you have been following the situation closely. what is your take?

jeff: i think turnarounds are arguably the most difficult thing you can do for business. trying to change the culture of an organization is primitively difficult. i think marissa walked into a situation that she knew would be challenging to the point that there was not a huge probability around.ng it credit to her for still taking on the role. i think she was able to make there, but that is a really challenging situation in terms of not just the culture assets. legacy the world has evolved so dramatically. trying to navigate that, it is tough, and really hard.

emily: is that the right call? jeff: i'm not in marissa shoes. i can see the future indicators. been excited or .onfident there is a whole host of variables. it is so much easier when you're on the outside looking in to know what is best. emily: what you think is the best and worst case scenario for yahoo!? jeff: it is still being used by millions of people around the world on a daily basis. if it is to be sold in needs to be sold on the value that they can create not just for today, but going forward.

emily: how do you make sure linkedin is not the next yahoo!? do you worry about the company being disrupted? jeff: if i were worried, i would not be doing my job. i never lose sight for the game that we make for ourselves. the disruptors.re formidable to to an extent we are drawing resources from the court. to the extent that you drink and that youraid, modes are impenetrable, that is when you will invite disruption. pay closesly attention to the way the landscape evolves, but you never want to lose sight of playing your own game.

emily: facebook seems to be chewing up on the ad dollars. can linkedin drive insignificant ad revenue from the media? jeff: absolutely. there are tens of billions of dollars being spent in an online capacity. it is highly fragmented and can be highly inefficient. we are going to continue to focus very aggressively on that part of our business. emily: one thing you have on is china. you have found a way to penetrate china. how would you rate china? do feel like you have cracked the code? do you feel like there is a lot more work to be done there? jeff: china is highly competitive.

iceas certainly succeeded petitions. we have seen that substantially grow. in terms of our core business, there is a lot of room for growth as well. it is still very early days. are, buteased where we there is still a lot of work to be done. emily: you have mentioned you compromises. we start to navigate the process before we launch. we spent the better part of 18 months understanding who we are

as a company, our culture, our values, and what operating in china would mean. despite all of those discussions, the first time you are asked to censor a member or take down a profile, it is gut wrenching. those members for is why we do what we do. at the same time, we recognize the china place a role in the global economy. working with china, we can not only help them connect to opportunity, but better connect companies in china to the global economy. that creates more value for everybody. emily: do you think facebook and twitter have a chance in china or there is no way they will be able to make it work there? jeff: the fundamental differences is we are platform that is about creating economic

opportunity. expandingocused on the middle class. facebook and twitter are focused on communications. it is different. it does not mean it is not possible, but it does different. emily: what does linked in look like five years from now? jeff: i think you will see us focus on the core pillars of the operations. i'm on the way to a meeting, and i can tell you the number of times i wish i did a little bit of homework about the person i meeting moreke the effective. walking into the meeting, you have the ability to shi say howu know this person, things you have in common. you can then apply that to a whole host of operations today. how we can leverage it to create

justvalue, i think we have scratched the surface of it as well. emily: thank you for joining us. great to have you. ♪

ashlee: the year was 2047, and this is all that was left. ♪ ashlee: the great space wars between the muscavarians and -- had depleted the earth of all its natural resources. the bitcoin virus and uber's robot chauffeurs had finished the job. the only sign that humans were here, the ramshackle buildings and the windmills that kept