LinkedIn is a performance art platform where people pretend to be more successful than they are while congratulating each other for posts they didn't read.
I'm 17, I use LinkedIn for Nexus, and watching how people actually behave on there has convinced me that it's actively making ambitious people less ambitious.
Not because the platform is inherently bad. Because it rewards the appearance of progress over actual progress, and most users can't tell the difference.
The engagement farming playbook
Here's how LinkedIn actually works:
Post about "lessons learned" → Add 3-5 bullet points with line breaks → Tag it with "career advice" or "entrepreneurship" → Watch people who skimmed it leave generic comments → Everyone's algorithm gets fed → Repeat
Nobody's reading. Nobody's learning. Everyone's just maintaining their "thought leader" persona.
I see the same founders posting daily "insights" about building startups who I know for a fact haven't shipped anything in months. They're writing about shipping instead of shipping. And LinkedIn rewards them for it because engagement is engagement.
The platform has created this weird incentive where documenting your journey is more valuable than actually making progress on the journey.
The humble brag economy
Every LinkedIn post follows the same formula:
"I'm humbled to announce..." [something they're actually very proud of]
"After months of hard work..." [translation: please acknowledge my effort]
"Grateful for the journey..." [please engage with this post]
It's performative humility as a growth hack. And it works because LinkedIn's algorithm prioritizes posts that generate comments, so everyone learned to write in the style that gets engagement, not the style that communicates anything true.
You know what I never see on LinkedIn? "I tried this thing and it completely failed and I wasted three months." That would be useful. That would be honest. But it doesn't perform well, so nobody posts it.
Instead you get: "I'm grateful for the learning opportunity this setback provided!" Which is just failure repackaged as growth mindset content.
Why "building in public" became fake
"Building in public" started as a real thing. Founders sharing actual progress, real numbers, honest challenges. It was valuable because it was true.
Now it's just another content strategy.
People post "behind the scenes" content that's carefully curated to look authentic while revealing nothing actually useful. They share "transparent" updates that are just humble brags with better formatting.
I've seen founders post about their "journey" daily while their actual product hasn't had a meaningful update in weeks. The posting became the product.
This is what LinkedIn does: it takes something real (sharing your actual building process) and turns it into performance (sharing content about building).
The networking illusion
LinkedIn sells itself as a professional network. "Connect with industry leaders!" "Build your professional brand!"
But here's what actually happens when you "network" on LinkedIn:
You connect with someone. You never talk to them. They like your posts occasionally. You like theirs. That's the entire relationship.
Real networking is when you actually talk to people, build relationships, help each other. LinkedIn networking is just mutual engagement farming.
I've made real connections at SF networking events, at hackathons, in founder group chats. LinkedIn? It's where people collect connections like Pokemon cards and then never message them.
What it's actually useful for
I'm not saying delete LinkedIn. It has legitimate uses:
Recruiting (if you need to hire)
Initial reach-outs (cold DMs sometimes work)
Basic credibility (having a profile signals you're real)
But that's it. Those are the only things LinkedIn is actually good for.
It's not good for:
Learning how to build
Getting real feedback
Understanding what's actually working in your industry
Building genuine relationships
Developing as a founder
Yet people spend hours crafting LinkedIn posts thinking it's productive work. It's not. It's procrastination with professional aesthetics.
The comparison trap
The worst part about LinkedIn is that it makes everyone else look more successful than they are.
You see someone announce they raised $2M. What you don't see: they spent 18 months fundraising and got rejected 50 times first.
You see someone hit 10,000 users. What you don't see: 9,000 of them never came back.
You see someone get promoted. What you don't see: they're miserable and already job hunting.
LinkedIn is everyone's highlight reel, and comparing your reality to someone else's edited version makes you feel like you're falling behind even when you're not.
What ambitious people should do instead
If you're actually ambitious, here's what matters more than your LinkedIn presence:
Build something people pay for. Revenue is real. LinkedIn likes are fake.
Talk to actual users. Customer feedback is valuable. LinkedIn comments are noise.
Ship consistently. Execution matters. Posts about execution don't.
Form real relationships. Help people directly. Don't just like their posts.
LinkedIn should be like 2% of your attention—just enough to maintain basic credibility. If it's more than that, you're optimizing for appearance over substance.
The founders who are actually winning aren't the ones with the best LinkedIn presence. They're the ones who barely post because they're too busy building.
— Arjun