World-Herald: LinkedIn IPO results in millionaires in Omaha office

According to an Omaha World-Herald article on Sunday, since LinkedIn became publicly traded in May, a number of employees at its Omaha office have benefited from the move. World-Hearld reporter Ross Boettcher writes: “And as it turns out, LinkedIn’s user base wasn’t the only thing that grew into the millions. After the company became publicly…

According to an Omaha World-Herald article on Sunday, since LinkedIn became publicly traded in May, a number of employees at its Omaha office have benefited from the move.

World-Hearld reporter Ross Boettcher writes: “And as it turns out, LinkedIn’s user base wasn’t the only thing that grew into the millions. After the company became publicly traded, a number of Omaha-based LinkedIn employees — estimated to be about 10 — instantly became millionaires, at least on paper.”

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company, which was founded in 2002, opened an office in Omaha in 2006 to staff its customer and tech support teams. In the article, Boettcher highlights the stories of two of the office’s early and former employees, April Kelly and Michelle Steinbeck, whose benefits packages included stock options.

“It’s one of those opportunities that’s part of the allure for working for a dot-com,” Kelly said, “it’s being part of the big whole.”

For the full story, see Omaha.com: “Local links in profit chain

Also worth noting, as the story points out, LinkedIn isn’t the only Silicon Valley company with an Omaha office. PayPal, which is owned by eBay, and Inflection, a self-described “a Big Data platform” founded in 2006, have offices in the city.

Blast from the past: It doesn’t seem like too long ago, March 2009, that we had covered a lunch talk given by Kelly on how to use LinkedIn for business: “April Kelly of LinkedIn speaks at educational lunch session.”

Image: Screenshot from omaha.com.

This story is part of the AIM Archive

This story is part of the AIM Institute Archive on Silicon Prairie News. AIM gifted SPN to the Nebraska Journalism Trust in January 2023. Learn more about SPN’s origin »

Channels:

Get the latest news and events from Nebraska’s entrepreneurship and innovation community delivered straight to your inbox every Wednesday.