I joined LinkedIn when admitting you were on LinkedIn would have gotten you side-eyed.

Early 2000s.
Post-crash.
Before the word professional meant documenting your personality defect in public.

LinkedIn wasn’t a network.
It was a room.
No chairs. One flickering light. Someone from SAP breathing too loudly near the printer.

You didn’t use it.
You inhabited it.
Like a forgotten conference room where careers went to wait.

The interface was blunt to the point of hostility.
Beige. Arial.
Dropdowns that looked like they resented being asked questions.

No encouragement. No applause.
Just names, companies, and the quiet implication that if you needed validation, you were already unqualified.

Everyone there felt adjacent to something inevitable.
Not success.
Infrastructure.

Enterprise companies were the edge.
That’s where the serious thinking lived.
Big systems. Long timelines.
Decisions that would haunt people you would never meet.

Also: WebSphere.

If you worked inside one, you weren’t a “talent.”
You were material.
Raw input for a system that would outlive your enthusiasm.

Profiles were deliberately undercooked.
Incomplete histories.
Job titles that said nothing and meant everything.
“Architect.” “Consultant.” “Lead.”
No one asked of what.

Recruiting felt less like hiring and more like noticing weather.
You didn’t reach out.
You noticed.
Sometimes you misinterpreted this as insight.

There was an intensity to it.
A belief that too much explanation would dilute the point.
Also that explaining anything at all was vaguely suspicious.

You were close to the work.
Close to the people.
Close to the future.
Which, in hindsight, was mostly meetings.

You didn’t post.
You didn’t signal.
You didn’t know what a “signal” was and assumed it involved hardware.

You just existed inside it and let it change you.
This felt important at the time.

Then the lights came on.
The room got bigger.
Everyone arrived and started narrating.

Thought leadership appeared.
Personal brands emerged.
People discovered adjectives.

But for a brief window, LinkedIn was raw, concentrated, and a little dangerous—
dangerous like committing to a ten-year vendor contract
or replying “Best” instead of “Regards.”

I was there when it still felt like trespassing.
I mistook this for significance.

Hiring quietly.
You’ll know if this is for you.
You won’t. The algorithm already decided.