Where everyone’s ‘thrilled to announce…’: LinkedIn is where everyone succeeds and nobody ever fails

I spent 20 years becoming a comedian. Which means I've bombed. Repeatedly. Sometimes magnificently. Not as magnificently as Trump in Iran. Because nobody, according to him, does anything better than him. But still...

I've performed to audiences of six people. One of them was asleep, two waiting for the next act, and one was my mother. And even my mum didn't laugh. According to LinkedIn, however, none of this ever happened. Because LinkedIn exists in an alternate universe where everyone has 'been humbled', 'been honoured', 'been thrilled', 'been deeply grateful'...

No one has ever been 'mildly confused,' 'spectacularly ignored,' or 'asked to leave,' according to posts on LinkedIn. Apparently, every keynote receives a standing ovation, and every founder changes the world. In fact, here, every intern 'drives strategic transformation.' If aliens landed tomorrow and studied LinkedIn, they'd conclude Earth has already solved poverty, climate change, and PowerPoint.


And then comes my favourite phrase: 'I'm excited to announce...' Really? Excited? Because your photograph suggests you've just renewed your passport? Now, I'm not mocking ambition. Ambition builds companies, countries. It probably also built LinkedIn. I'm merely fascinated by a business world that constantly tells us to embrace failure, while carefully ensuring nobody ever sees any sign of it.

There's the Silicon Valley-enabled lip service: Fail fast. Experiment. Take risks. Learn from your mistakes. But then, what gets posted is only the promotion.

Standup comedy doesn't give you that option. If a joke fails, you know immediately. So does everyone else. Nobody schedules a meeting afterwards to discuss whether the audience was sufficiently aligned with the strategic intent of the punchline. They just stare at you. Or their phone. Or, if you're particularly bad, their watch. There are few performance management systems more efficient.

Comedy teaches you that failure is information. When a joke bombs, you change a word, move a pause, rewrite the premise, or eventually accept that the brilliant idea you've been polishing for three weeks was not ahead of its time. It was just rubbish.

Business, supposedly, believes this, too. Yet, somehow every professional story gets edited before being posted or emailed. Nobody writes: 'Delighted to announce that after 18 months of strategic transformation, we have returned to exactly where we started, but with a new logo.'

Nobody posts: 'Humbled to share that the market did not recognise my genius.' You almost never see, 'Excited to share that the project I championed has been cancelled. Apparently, finance had concerns. In retrospect, finance had several excellent points.'

Nobody says: 'Thrilled to announce that the promotion went to Sanjay.' Except of course, Sanjay.

Instead, careers appear beautifully linear. Startup. Funding. Growth. Exit. Keynote. Podcast. Nobody gets fired. They 'embark on a new chapter.' Nobody's company fails. They 'take invaluable learnings into their next venture.' Nobody makes a terrible decision. They 'gain clarity.' At this rate, bankruptcy will soon be called 'an exciting opportunity to explore alternative liquidity models.'

The trouble is that underneath all this comedy sits a serious problem. If leaders only narrate victories, everyone else starts believing competent people don't fail. And once failure becomes evidence of incompetence rather than a normal consequence of trying difficult things, people become extremely good at hiding it.

Which is unfortunate, because organisations generally learn more from 'This didn't work' than 'Delighted to share...'

I'm not suggesting LinkedIn should become a global festival of inadequacy. Nobody needs a 1,400-word post beginning, 'I'm humbled to announce that I completely messed this up.' Although I'd probably read it.

But, perhaps, life would become significantly more useful, and certainly more entertaining, if just occasionally, someone posted: 'Today I gave a presentation. It was average. Nobody cried. Nobody called me visionary. One person asked where the samosas were. Overall, a decent Tuesday.'

I'd hit 'Like'. Twice.