How can Microsoft justify the hefty $26.2bn price tag?
4. Forget relationships - profit matters
To make matters worse, Microsoft is spending $26bn (£18bn) on a company that reported an annual loss of $8m. LinkedIn's stock plunged 43 per cent when the company announced that loss, sinking to a three-year low of $110 in early trading and wiping $11bn off the firm's value.
Despite a growing user base and an increase in revenues, the company hasn't quite worked out how to make a profit, which begs the question: how does Microsoft see LinkedIn growing its own revenues? And will it see a return on investment on the $26bn it will pay?