Thirty thousand connections on LinkedIn. I am not sure that is something to celebrate.
I joined LinkedIn in December 2003, about six months after it launched. I was among the first 70,000 members on a platform that nobody was quite sure would last. Back then, connecting with someone meant something close to what it sounds like: a real thread between two people who had actually crossed paths, shared a stage, worked a problem together, or at least sat in the same room long enough to matter to each other.
That instinct has not left me. I still connect serendipitously. Not strategically. Not to hit a number.
-Kim Salem-Jackson
Twenty-two years of showing up on one platform will accumulate. Inbound connections from people who read something I wrote, heard me speak, or found me through a mutual contact. Two job offers that came entirely through LinkedIn, both of which I accepted. Friendships that started as a connection request. Learning that happened in comment threads at 11pm when I should have been asleep.
The platform has given me more than I have given it.
Still, 30,000 invites some honest accounting. There are connections in there who linked, pitched within 48 hours, and went quiet. They were never in the network. They were in a sequence. Removing them is not pruning a relationship; it is clearing a field of weeds that were never planted with intention.
Then there are the people who stepped back from professional life. Retired, traveling, growing things in their gardens, reading without an agenda for the first time in decades. My instinct is not to remove them. Some of the wisest conversations I have had came from people who no longer had anything to sell. Perspective lives there. Honesty does too.
The better filter is not activity. It is this: would this person take a call from me? Would I take one from them? Everyone who clears that bar is in my network. Everyone else is my audience, and I am grateful for that too, but they are a different thing.
LinkedIn is not a numbers game. Every connection I value arrived through some form of genuine contact, even if brief. A conversation at a conference. A comment that turned into a thread. A DM from someone who read something I wrote and had something real to add.
That is the only growth worth chasing: people who show up, contribute, and stay.
If you are reading this and we are connected, thank you. You are part of something I did not build alone.
Disclaimer: This blog post reflects my personal views only. AI tools may have been used for brevity, structure, or research support.
