LinkedIn 2015 Annual Report Download - page 21

available on our investor relations website under the heading ‘‘Corporate Governance.’’ The contents of
our websites are not intended to be incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K or
in any other report or document we file with the SEC, and any references to our websites are intended
to be inactive textual references only. We have used, and intend to continue to use, our investor
relations website, as well as our website (www.linkedin.com), the LinkedIn page
(https://www.linkedin.com/company/linkedin), our Twitter feed (https://twitter.com/linkedin) and our
corporate blog (www.blog.linkedin.com), as a means of disclosing material non-public information and
for complying with our disclosure obligations under Regulation FD.
Item 1A. Risk Factors
Investing in our Class A common stock involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully
consider the risks and uncertainties described below, together with all of the other information in this
Annual Report on Form 10-K, including our consolidated financial statements and related notes, before
deciding whether to purchase shares of our Class A common stock. If any of the following risks are
realized, our business, operating results and prospects could be materially and adversely affected. In
that event, the price of our Class A common stock could decline, and you could lose part or all of your
investment.
Risks Related to Our Business
Our core value of putting our members first may conflict with the short-term interests of our
business.
One of our core values is to make decisions based on the best long-term interests of our
members, which we believe is essential to our success in increasing our member growth rate and
engagement, creating value for our members and in serving the best, long-term interests of the
company and our stockholders. Therefore, in the past, we have forgone, and may in the future forgo,
certain expansion or short-term revenue opportunities that we do not believe are in the best interests of
our members, even if our decision negatively impacts our operating results in the short term. In
addition, our philosophy of putting our members first may cause disagreements, or negatively impact
our relationships, with our existing or prospective customers. This could result in enterprises and
professional organizations blocking access to our services or refusing to purchase our Talent Solutions,
Marketing Solutions or Premium Subscriptions. Our decisions may not result in the long-term benefits
that we expect, in which case our member engagement, business and operating results could be
harmed.
We may not timely and effectively scale and adapt our existing technology and network
infrastructure to ensure that our services and solutions are accessible within an acceptable load
time. Additionally, natural disasters or other catastrophic occurrences beyond our control could
interfere with access to our services.
A key element to our continued growth is the ability of our members, users (whom we define as
anyone who visits one of our websites through a computer or application on a mobile device,
regardless of whether or not they are a member), enterprises and professional organizations in all
geographies to access our websites, services and solutions within acceptable load times. We call this
website performance. We have experienced, and may in the future experience, service disruptions,
outages and other performance problems due to a variety of factors, including infrastructure changes,
human or software errors, capacity constraints due to an overwhelming number of users accessing our
services simultaneously, and denial of service or fraud or security attacks. In some instances, we may
not be able to identify the cause or causes of these website performance problems within an
acceptable period of time. We expect it will become increasingly difficult to maintain and improve our
website performance, especially during peak usage times and as our solutions become more complex
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