LinkedIn had five co-founders. Reid Hoffman started the company with Allen Blue, Konstantin Guericke, Eric Ly, and Jean-Luc Vaillant, bringing together a team with experience in technology, product development, and online services.
The group founded LinkedIn in December 2002 and launched the service on May 5, 2003. Hoffman provided the central entrepreneurial vision, while the broader founding team helped shape the product and its early engineering, design, and business direction.
A frequent source of confusion is the difference between “founder,” “co-founder,” and “founding team member.” Some summaries identify Hoffman most prominently, while others list the wider group of five people credited with founding LinkedIn. For a quiz asking how many co-founders LinkedIn had, five is the standard canonical count.
LinkedIn’s early identity was also distinct from general-purpose social networks: it focused on professional connections, résumés, recruiting, and career development. That specialized purpose helped it grow from a small 2003 launch into a global business network.