Don’t have a LinkedIn account yet? You will, if the online networking company’s slamming IPO today is any indication. Trading under the symbol “LNKD,” the Mountain Valley, California-based outfit charged on to the New York Stock Exchange with the bell this morning priced at $45 and has since sailed up more than 90 percent to over $85 per share. The tech press is terribly hot and bothered! Reuters compared the debut to the “jump reminiscent of the heyday of investors’ love affair with Internet stocks in the late 1990s,” and countless other headlines are eagerly asking whether (pant, pant) this just might portend the arrival of Tech Bubble 2.0! Don’t count on it, but wherever founder Reid Hoffman is, we’re pretty sure he’s just sitting back imagining himself floating in $4.25 billion — drowning, actually, at last look.
