The Curfew Tolls the Knell of Parting Day for LinkedIn

LinkedIn to what? MSFT is doing what?

I love these stuff.

So I put my message in a bottle by the ocean at Sagg Main Beach (I also call it MY beach), for the CEO of Microsoft.

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Dear Mr. Nadella,

Congratulations on your acquisition of LinkedIn which can be easily described as “Hodge podge.” But that assertion assumes the state of LinkedIn as of now, before you had brought it under your tutelage. I hope I have not crossed the line of decency – kindly allow me to inform you, that English is my second language and it has been 35 years since I have had my last English class.

I am also not overly optimistic that the bottle carrying my message will ever reach your vicinity so I am less afraid of your countenance towards puerile wordings of mine, but more afraid of the fact that this effort to congratulate you on your recent astute move with LinkedIn may all but go in vain.

So, here I am, mastering up the courage to write this to you on LinkedIn as well, wishing for an unlikely event of catching the eye balls of  luminaries that LinkedIn insufficiently calls Influencers’ (what shameful designation for masters of the business world such as you, sir?)

May I suggest you change it to “invocators?”

The most amazing thing about your foresight is that you have seen the shimmering gold flakes on LinkedIn stocks, that even the “IN” shareholders have failed to see …

That is the mastery. Bravo, sir.

It is only a matter of time, that Microsoft Shareholders will laugh at Mr. Hoffman being out witted by your move, and pocket that money that could be his - easily. In fact, a recent New York Post article likened him to a poor man with a picture that makes him look like a vagabond – “multi-billionaire that is.”

On the other hand, you are magnificent, so you didn’t care about the billion dollar he added to his pile of cold hard cash.

Last but not the least you are an avid exchequer of Microsoft, and thus you managed to dispense with not a penny of Microsoft’s cash, in gobbling up a lucrative entity – LNKD.

I understand, what stands between you and LNKD becoming a cash cow, is a simple, blissful easy breezy “Integration.”

All of us that remain so influenced by you, consider it done …

It is established that you spearhead an operation that is amply equipped with apparatus harnessing extreme capabilities of executing integration at untold heights, such as integrating a complex and currently haphazard company, that is LinkedIn.

May I humbly bring into your attention, various issues of “lack of integration”, that is prevalent amongst and across the board of Microsoft’s infrastructure, web sites, platforms, services and even its store?

Almost nothing seems to work seamlessly for business users. I am not by any means suggesting that you have to pay any attention to the concerns of such pitiful customers like small and medium businesses.

I am also assuming that you are not going to involve LinkedIn people, in the aforesaid “process of Integration.” I must tell you, that if there is one thing they are not good at - other than prospecting timely sale of their livestock – is integration.

May we say they took the “In” out of integration with vengeance? 

With pitiful attempt at humor, I end my humble application to you.

In fine,

I can’t wait to use those Cha-Ching services, totally streamlined by you, like chintz and making my biggest nightmares go away in a year or two, bringing glory to Microsoft.

With warmest regards,

A pitiful Microsoft business applications user and Microsoft share holder.

N.B. My biggest nightmares are of those pre-adolescence gamers – I am afraid the only ones who can intuitively figure out LinkedIn Services are those gamers.

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Yes, my call is that of Linkedin’s demise - which is all but cast in stone.

Before I put my case forward, congratulations to the founders. Not “unscathed” but “out.”

It – LinkedIn – is Mr. Nadella’s Albatross now.

I will eat the crow happily if I am wrong, but the acquisition of LNKD by MSFT is a carelessly executed acquisition that has limited potential for gain, if any.

The proposition of Microsoft/LinkedIn merger should have been dead on arrival.

I cannot begin to fathom, why the esteem business leaders don’t understand, one simple thing – companies become living breathing bodies? They embrace and inculcate their own different personae.

Mercedes had and will continue to have a different personality than that of Chrysler. That ‘period’ preceding this sentence was meant to be uttered with a “thud.” I don’t need to go on with listing all examples of “doomed marriages of all failed mergers and acquisitions.”

If you are reading this far, my assumptions are that you all are familiar to those blunders.

I will still list one more of the craziest ones, at the end of this article – I hope you stay with me.

Call me old school but LinkedIns of the world seemed to be very susceptible to death by the law of “diminishing marginal utility.”

I have no theory on that - just a suggestion. But my abhorrence of mergers like this, rests on the whole argument of viability of a marriage of completely unmatched personalities. I don’t even remotely think that there is any semblance of match in MSFT-LNKD merger/marriage.

The news of an exit by LinkedIn’s board – not so terribly timed – was phenomenal for them, to some extent. For me however, it would provide a source of rousing hope.

The hope for experienced executives, that I am trying to put in place, in my business, would somehow, emerge from a few backbenchers that will be discarded as a result of known process/fate of mergers as LNKD becomes a part of MSFT portfolio.

Presumably they will be far more acceptable candidates than the ones that didn’t make the cut of my hours’ worth of screening of potential candidates’ on LinkedIn - yielding in over 60% people that identify themselves as CEOs.

If all these people on LinkedIn, that run the companies are looking for jobs, then who, and how well, do they run those companies?

Linkedin’s hiring solutions are simply dispensable. The application behind it is so flawed, it has to be built from the ground up – I cannot offer any estimation of cost and/or time needed to accomplish that.

How could Microsoft ignore it?

When I was first advised to join LinkedIn by someone - I rather not belittle, by my mention - I reached out to an outstanding woman named Lynn A Walsh of Sears Holding’s to be my first connection.

She was more than a mentor to me and as Men’s Apparel Buyer of Sears, she used her mighty pen to write an order for Sears Bangladesh’s office with an FOB value of over 2 million dollars.

One would simply not understand, what role that order would end up playing in Bangladesh’s becoming, second only to China, in apparels export to USA. I would go onto become the first Sears Country Manager overseas, who was not an-expatriate American, and may I humbly add, for “three countries – Bangladesh, India and Nepal.”

Now for the eulogy:

• I thank LinkedIn for giving me the platform for being able to send my gratitude to Lynn A Walsh and many others in Sears long after I left the company.
• I thank LinkedIn for being the primary source of communication with Marc S. Farinella and Adnan Zillur Morshed – 2 of my best friends (I tend to change my numbers frequently as I hate talking on the phone - an acquired disease from my days as Signals Officer in Bangladesh Army.)
• I thank LinkedIn for having the platform usable enough, that led me to hire my current outstanding EA Taysia Woodruff.
• I thank LinkedIn for being the platform in fostering my friendship with Anne E. Bowman a strong woman that lifted her glass to cheer my “otherwise less than ordinary entrance” into the club lounge of a Ritz Carlton Hotel in California. She then went on to engage with me with heartfelt fellowship, love and laughter, after one of the most dreadful mornings of my life, as my wife Laura Doha was recuperating from a concussion as a result of accidental fall.

I also, am humbled by Anne's calling me “the true servant of god across the globe.”

That is one of the most thoughtful accolades anyone has ever granted me. May our continued friendship lead us to serve wherever we are called to, and may we turn down hate and prejudice, anywhere and everywhere, without making ourselves recursively hateful.

Please wipe your tears for LinkedIn, and now the D-E-S-S-E-R-T:

One of the headlines of the MSFT/LNKD acquisition goes as follows:

“Dow 30 Stock Roundup: Microsoft Acquires LinkedIn, Merck to Buy Afferent Pharmaceuticals”

I could not believe the irony.

It is a great practice to acquire companies, that will compliment what the acquiring company is already doing, but supposedly harness “supporting synergy." One however, doesn’t necessarily have to buy companies in the same business category.

But in this case, Merck and Afferent - as mentioned in the news, which I pointed to above – are both pharmaceuticals.

To me, there is only one thing that is common with MSFT and LNKD – that is "Hodge podge."

The target for integration is 2018.

Wait, what?

Who will do the integration?

Microsoft or LinkedIn?

Integrate What?

The biggest weakness, that both merging companies are dogged by – is, Integration.

I have one word for the outcome of this deal - BEBO.

Remember how hapless AOL bought BEBO for 850 million dollars or so?

Does anyone even know what BEBO is?

Surprisingly and anecdotally, in the year of 2010, a young man who used to hang out with some of my staff, claiming to be connected to Cheesecake Factory’s controlling shareholders, reached out to me seeking to invest in my company.

Through a different channel, he also wanted to see if I would hire him.

There is no valid reason for suspicion that entered my mind, as someone presumably offering to invest millions in my company, could also be an excellent and hired executive, “at the top level.”

When asked what position is he seeking, he replied to the then AVP of Corporate Affairs, “I don’t know, CFO or something …”

That AVP of mine, delivered the response verbatim, intelligently understanding the need to do so.

See, the only red flag for me was - the conjunctive use of or and “something.”

With not much schooling in English– which is my second language – I am little more linear in my ‘concatenation’ of the language, than otherwise.

I would probably use that kind of conjunction of words "or" & "something" for decisions that are as mundane as ordering– D-E-S-S-E-R-T-S– and NOT, by a long shot, for hiring top level executives for my budding company.

That man’s name is Adam Levin.

AOL reportedly sold BEBO for $10 million to Mr. Levin.

I was told by my staff that Adam indeed would take over the company, but “never had anywhere close to $10 million and Adam claimed that he was actually paid for the photo op.”

So, it seems that AOL actually paid someone, to take BEBO off the book, that is something they bought for nearly a billion dollars - or, at the best case scenario received only 10 full notes for that something, aka, “BEBO.”

Then Mr. Levin asked my staff to see if we would be interested in helping in “redesigning and restructuring” BEBO. My staff diligently put together a proposal with my full involvement. Soon, I would have a call with one Mr. Garg.

Within minutes during that call, my suspicion grew and I feared it will be impossible to intervene in a business already facing a behemoth named “Facebook.” I also concluded that with Mr. Garg at the stern of BEBO, once the darling of Europe at least, has become nothing short of – “Hodge podge.”

I truncated the call as respectfully as I could do and would not hear about BEBO any time soon, again.

Here is caramel topping of the D-E-S-S-E-R-T:

One fine morning, the man who was handling our PR, sent me the link of an article that would bring back BEBO into my humble “realm.”

Before I unveil that link, let me say one thing - that I may not be able corroborate the following statement, but putting it out here knowing that the implications are benign:

The link will take you to an interview of Mr. Levin months after his acquisition of BEBO.

Interestingly enough, Mr. Levin’s “only coherent answer” was largely made up of words and elements that were taken directly from our proposal to him.

I will put the link of that article at the end of my post – it is highly entreating paring of what I mindlessly termed as “D-E-S-S-E-R-T.” 

But I must point out MSFT/LNKD merger is no laughing matter, nor does it need mastery of words.

It is an enormously serious business that will affect many people’s lives -  mine included. Not unlike “AOL/TIME WARNER” merger or, you guessed it - AOL’s acquisition of long forgotten BEBO.

The two examples of “failed mergers”, I indicated to above, has a few things in common. I will list some of those below:

1. The founders of acquired companies executed stunningly timed exit. They maximized their gains while acquiring companies, apart from adding massive and unbearable headaches stemming from their acquisitions ended up with “zero some” gains before severing the ties.
2. The need for the acquisition did not support quantifiable and/or logical reasoning.
3. Acquired companies were in decline, and by all indications, their ailments were systematic during the execution.
4. The biggest irony of these two mergers that I am alluding to is this:

AOL was in the winning side of the AOL/TWX merger as they were in being, debilitating and losing acquirer of BEBO.

It is very likely that a similar consequences could pan out here from MSFT/LNKD merger.

I hope not, but integration itself can be costly, time consuming and futile, eating into estimated turn-around time for LinkedIn, that could provide the lunging force for the parting shot.

This is one of the most negative notes I have ever penned down. I ask your forgiveness.

As promised, here is the link to the interview I mentioned above.

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Footnote: The title of the post is the opening line of one of the greatest poems. If you haven’t already, I humbly suggest you read it.