Here is a problem with LinkedIn that no one is talking about.

A lot of successful people don’t want to admit how they achieved success, but they still want to be thought leader.

So they make up the strategies they used to achieve this success.

For instance, most CEOs hire their executives through insider referrals, but they don’t want to admit that publicly. So, they set up public application processes that will probably never be reviewed.

Service companies make a ton of money by making it hard for clients to cancel, but they don’t want to admit that this is why their revenue went up X% last quarter. So they attribute it to “onboarding improvements”.

Most professionals get featured in huge media outlets by hiring a PR agency, networking with an important editor, or simply by chance. Of course, they will never admit it, so they make it look like they’re more popular because they did X or Y.

I’m not against using insider referrals for hiring, making it hard for clients to cancel or invest in your personal brand through PR.

The issue is that lying about how you achieved success makes a lot of people (millions if you’re an influencer) waste their time and money believing that they also can succeed by doing X and Y.

And that’s the problem with LinkedIn. Many people attribute their success to strategies that actually never worked, making it unreliable for your education and harmful for your career.