LinkedIn and I Need Some Space

Dear LinkedIn,

Do you remember? We first met in 2005, more than twenty years ago. Time has flown.

Through you, I connected with people, had conversations and found new opportunities. You were there through new jobs, new teams, career changes, successes, mistakes and several versions of me.

And it was not a one-way relationship. Like any good relationship, it went both ways.

In 2011, I published a free analysis of your growth across Europe. News sites picked it up, and you featured it.

I still remember waking up to an inbox full of messages from people who had read it, shared it or wanted to continue the conversation.

It is difficult to describe that feeling.

Something I had written had suddenly travelled much further than I could have imagined. It produced questions, conversations and exchanges with people I had never met. You later invited me to your Milan office.

I had given you something useful, and you helped it travel much further than I could have done alone.

Those were good times.

For a long time, the relationship worked. Not perfectly, of course, but what relationship does?

But over time, two things changed.

The first was you.

Once, you were a place to meet people and exchange ideas. Now you feel more like a place where we carefully manage how we want to be seen.

Sometimes I came to learn something or see what people were thinking, and instead found another post explaining how waking up at 4:30 had created a visionary leader, or how financial freedom was only five steps away.

I kept finding more posts and fewer conversations I wanted to join.

There was more content, but less exchange. More posts that somehow all started to sound the same.

And then there was reach.

Writing something is no longer enough. You had to package, publish it at the right time, encourage immediate engagement and understand what the algorithm reward that week.

Reach became a battle and perhaps can still be won. I am simply no longer sure I want to fight it.

The second thing that changed was me, or perhaps the audience I had accumulated through you.

When I write here, I picture twenty years of professional history in front of me: former managers, current colleagues, people who were on my teams, customers, partners, competitors and people I met once in 2009 and have never spoken to since.

I find it harder to write freely when I am thinking about how all those people might interpret every sentence and every word.

I have deleted sentences because I imagined a former manager reading them. I have measured each word because a colleague might take them the wrong way. In worse cases, I just deleted the draft. And the thought.

But there is more.

Could something I write damage the company I work for? Could a customer misunderstand it? Could a partner read it as an official position? Could a competitor use it in a way I did not intend?

Of course, I know the responsibility that comes with my role, and that what I say can reflect on more than just me.

But sometimes it feels as if I have lost the right to hold a personal opinion.

Or at least the right to express one before it has been carefully checked against my job, my title and what people expect from me professionally.

I cannot place all of this on you.

I know what I am doing when I remove a sentence, or soften an opinion or turn a messy thought into something safer then it is.

Perhaps this is what happens in a long relationship. It becomes difficult to separate what the other person has become from what you have become around them.

That combination changed the way I wrote here.

Before I had finished a thought, I was already editing it for the platform and for the people who might read it. Some ideas never made it past that point.

I want to write about product, AI and technology, but also about other things.

I might want to publish some photographs from the years when I went everywhere with a camera. I might want to share a 3D printer model I have tested, or ask people what music I should listen to next, or occasionally rant without turning the rant into five lessons for product leaders.

I want somewhere where I can collect rough ideas, develop them privately or in public, and without feeling like every thought needs to become immediately a lesson or fit into a framework.

That is why I have created another place to write.

Stepping back from a long relationship is never easy. There is too much history, too many memories, and much of it was good.

So no, this is not a dramatic goodbye.

I am not deleting my account, and I still know where to find you. I will still visit, keep my profile updated and we will probably continue to have some good moments together.

I am not replacing you.

I just no longer want you to be the place where all my writing and thoughts have to live.

I do not want you in the room every time I write.

I just need some space.

I will not tell you where the new place is. You have had enough of my thoughts already.

Those who are curious will find their way there. Or they can simply send me a message on LinkedIn.

Let’s stay friends.

Partially yours,

Valerio