Always Be Learning: LinkedIn to Acquire lynda.com

For well over two decades, I've been interested in helping to reform the education system. It was actually one of the reasons I went into business, specifically with the belief that one day I could hopefully have enough influence and resources to make a positive difference.

While I was fortunate to have access to a quality public school education and to later attend a top university, it always struck me that our education system was increasingly antiquated. Among other changes, I believe we need to transition from a 20th century approach heavily reliant on rote learning to a 21st century curriculum focused on collaboration, critical reasoning and creative problem solving; provide more opportunities for experiential vs. textbook learning; better equip teachers to cater to multiple forms of intelligence vs. simply focusing on math and verbal skills; ensure compassion is taught in every classroom; and provide today's students with the skills they need to obtain the jobs that are and will be vs. the jobs that once were.

Above all else, I believe that every student that wants to learn should have access to a quality education and not need to win a lottery to attend the right school.

Through programs offered by LinkedIn and my former employers, such as Time Warner and Yahoo!, amazing philanthropic organizations like Donorschoose.org and the Boys & Girls Club of the Peninsula, and participating on the board of our local elementary school, I've thankfully had the opportunity to stay involved in the world of education ever since graduating college. However, it wasn't until I joined LinkedIn that I realized that education was only one part of the equation, and that an education without access to economic opportunity was incomplete.

LinkedIn’s fundamental value proposition is connecting people to opportunity. We’ve made significant progress in this area; nearly 350 million members can use LinkedIn to find a job, build a business, and be more successful in their careers. However, matching talent and opportunity is a simplified take on the equation. Without access to education and the ability to acquire skills, many of these opportunities will remain far out of reach for most people.

With today’s announcement that LinkedIn intends to acquire lynda.com, LinkedIn has taken a material step forward toward connecting these dots. You can learn more here about the details of today's announcement.

When I look at lynda.com’s platform, I see a best-in-class collection of high-quality, premium content that is focused on professional skills — hundreds of thousands of videos, comprising thousands of full courses — that make it possible for anybody to easily and effectively acquire a skill needed to get their first job, get a promotion, land a business deal or advance their career.

At LinkedIn, we’ve followed lynda.com for a long time, rooted in the conviction that access to high-quality, skills-based learning-and-development content should be available to every LinkedIn member and a fundamental part of our platform. Through its singular focus on programming and content quality, we concluded that lynda.com had developed the best approach for LinkedIn in the industry. In fact, we were so aligned on this strategy that when I called Ryan Roslansky, the head of LinkedIn's content products, to discuss the thought of acquiring the company, he remarked in disbelief that he had been planning to pitch me the same idea the following day.

Once we began meeting regularly with founder Lynda Weinman, CEO Eric Robison, and their team, we immediately saw that our focus and vision was in complete alignment. Both companies believe strongly that the growing skills gap is one of the biggest challenges to the future of the global economy. We also believe passionately that education without economic opportunity is not enough; neither is access to opportunity without the ability to acquire education and skills. Lynda wrote a post on LinkedIn this morning about what this means to her.

The combination of LinkedIn and lynda.com is the kind of fit that benefits everyone. LinkedIn has the members, the jobs, a unique understanding of the skills required to do those jobs, and a publishing platform that can be accessed by roughly 350 million people to share professionally relevant knowledge. lynda.com's service has the premium library of skills-based courses. Together, we can bring opportunities and access to knowledge that everyone deserves. And together, we can more easily build the Economic Graph by mapping together the people, jobs, skills, and knowledge that are core components of it.

When someone asks me for advice on how to go about realizing their career aspirations, I always make sure to leave them with three suggestions. First, know what it is you ultimately want to accomplish, optimizing for passion and skills, and not one without the other. Second, surround yourself with the best talent, because in a knowledge-driven economy, it’s all about the people. And finally, always be learning. The world moves too quickly now to rest on the knowledge we gained earlier in our lives. The combination of LinkedIn and lynda.com will ultimately help make the third point a reality for every member of the global workforce.