LinkedIn 2014 Annual Report Download - page 28

may require substantial investment or may provide technical challenges for our business. It is also
likely that as our business grows, evolves, and an increasing portion of our business shifts to mobile,
and our solutions are used in a greater number of countries and additional groups, we will become
subject to laws and regulations in additional jurisdictions. Further, as our services and solutions expand
to include more content (including from third parties), additional laws and regulations may become
applicable to our products and offerings including laws requiring us to restrict the availability of such
content on a geographical basis or to certain groups of members. In some cases, laws and legal
obligations of various jurisdictions may be ambiguous or conflict as to LinkedIn’s right to display and
distribute certain content as part of its online services. Users of our site and our solutions could also
abuse or misuse our products in ways that violate laws. It is difficult to predict how existing laws will be
applied to our business and the new laws and legal obligations to which we may become subject.
If we are not able to comply with these laws or other legal obligations or if we (or our members)
become liable under these laws or legal obligations, or if our services are suspended or blocked, we
could be directly harmed, and we may be forced to implement new measures to reduce exposure to
this liability. This may require us to expend substantial resources or to discontinue certain solutions,
which would negatively affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, the
increased attention focused upon liability issues as a result of lawsuits and legislative proposals could
harm our reputation or otherwise impact the growth of our business. Any costs incurred as a result of
this potential liability could harm our business and operating results.
We expect our operating results to fluctuate on a quarterly and annual basis, which may result
in a decline in our stock price if such fluctuations result in a failure to meet the expectations of
securities analysts or investors.
Our revenue and operating results have in the past and could in the future vary significantly from
quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year and may fail to match our past performance, our projections or the
expectations of securities analysts because of a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our
control. Any of these events could cause the market price of our Class A common stock to fluctuate.
Factors that may contribute to the variability of our operating results include:
• our ability to create value for our members as well as increase the size of our member base;
• our commitment to putting our members first even if it means forgoing short-term revenue
opportunities;
• shifts in the way members and users access our websites and services from personal computers
to mobile devices;
• disruptions or outages in the availability of our websites or services, actual or perceived
breaches of privacy, and compromises of our member data;
• changes in our pricing policies or those of our competitors;
• our ability to increase sales of our products and solutions to new customers and expand sales of
additional products and solutions to our existing customers;
• the size and seasonal variability of our customers’ recruiting, marketing and sales budgets;
• the extent to which existing customers renew their agreements with us and the timing and terms
of those renewals;
• general industry and macroeconomic conditions, in particular, deterioration in labor markets,
which would adversely impact sales of our Talent Solutions, or economic growth that does not
lead to job growth, for instance increases in productivity;
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