Scaling AI Efficiency at LinkedIn with Erran Berger, CTO of Engineering

Erran Berger (0:00)

Got one of the most at scale verified identity platforms on the internet today. And I think we're pushing 100 million people, members who are verified if we're not already there.

And pretty amazing, especially in a world today where abuse is rampant. It's almost hard to know, am I talking to a real person or a bad actor, am I talking to a real person or AI?

Joel Beasley (0:29)

I've gotten to talk to many people at LinkedIn from Mohawk, all different types of people. Everyone that I've met has been brilliant, kind, fun, intelligent. It's just been an absolute pleasure. So the bar is high.

But I'm curious, what role are you in at LinkedIn? What are you doing there?

Erran Berger (0:46)

Yeah. So I'm CTO of our engineering organization. So we pretty recently restructured software development LinkedIn into two organizations.

One that we call engineering, one that we call infrastructure. I lead the engineering organization. That is the teams that build all of our user-facing applications from our flagship application that you probably have on your phone, to our enterprise products that we sell recruiters and salespeople, to our advertising business. It also includes a bunch of the platforms that support those businesses. Things like our trust platform and how we keep people safe and customers safe on the platform, messaging, search, those things that are really foundational to building any of these products. It includes our AI foundations team. Obviously, so much of the value that we create for our members and customers is from AI, and so we have a team that's developing foundational capabilities that our product teams use. And it also includes some productivity teams focusing on employee productivity. In particular, a huge part of our employee base is go to market, and so much of how we go to market with our products is tied to the features that we build as well as how we build people. And so that's really one thought, end to end. And so that's my scope. And I've got a peer, his name is Raghu, a brilliant guy, somebody I've partnered with for a long time. I don't know if you've had a chance to meet him.

He runs infrastructure. And so we depend on a lot of what his team produces to build amazing products for members and customers.

Joel Beasley (2:25)

Yeah, absolutely. His last name starts with an H, right?

Erran Berger (2:29)

Yeah, it does.

Joel Beasley (2:30)

Yeah, we did something I think back a few years ago. But yeah, is Mohawk still there?

Erran Berger (2:35)

Mohawk's still within the larger Microsoft ecosystem. He's working on some pretty fun projects around the future of work.

And obviously, we still spent a lot of time together. And I reported to him for, I think, at least a decade before he moved on to bigger and better things. And Raghu was my peer reporting for basically just as long. And we kind of took over the reins from him and learned a lot from him. So it's been fun kind of watching him, you know, scales impact.

Joel Beasley (3:07)

Yeah, after a thousand episodes, there are like a handful of stories that I will remember forever. Him riding around on that tricycle is going to be one that just sticks with me until the day I die.

Erran Berger (3:17)

There's probably some other stories, but I'm not sure if you'd want me sharing them. So we'll stick with the tricycle story, maybe off the mic. Yeah, exactly.

Joel Beasley (3:25)

So when you iterated through those list of products, I mean, I was familiar with about half of them. You guys do way more.

Erran Berger (3:31)

Yeah.

Joel Beasley (3:32)

You know, I saw that that safety one. Is that the one where it's telling me it's asking me like verify my identity? I saw that come up recently.

Erran Berger (3:39)

Yeah. I mean, we both have a lot of products, and I think there's a lot of features even within any of those products. And the one you just talked about was verifications. You know, we've got one of the most at scale verified identity platforms on the Internet today. And I think we're pushing 100 million people, members who are verified if we're not already there. And it's pretty amazing, especially in a world today where where abuse is rampant. It's almost hard to know, am I talking to a real person or a bad actor? Am I talking to a real person or AI? Having that verified badge on a profile in contacts when you're messaging with somebody, are you seeing them in your feed or they're reaching out to offer you a job? Are they a real recruiter? It's so important, I feel like, and more important than ever has been. So a few years ago, we decided we are going to give free access for people to verify themselves who they are, where they work.