For LinkedIn Corp. Chief Executive Jeff Weiner, the latest technology boom hopefully won't turn out to be a bust.

LinkedIn -- a social network aimed at professionals -- was among the first of a new crop of Web firms to go public this year. Its shares more than doubled on its first day of trading in May on the New York Stock Exchange, igniting excitement for a slew of other Web company IPOs.

But LinkedIn's soaring stock price and valuation of close to $8 billion has sparked questions about whether skyrocketing valuations for many Web companies can be sustained. LinkedIn recently reported second-quarter earnings of $4.5 million, up 5.1% from a year earlier, and revenue of $121 million, more than double from a year ago.

The site, where people post resumes and exchange messages with colleagues, business contacts and recruiters, has 120 million members.

In an interview at the company's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, Mr. Weiner, a 41-year-old former Yahoo Inc. executive who became LinkedIn CEO in 2009, discussed how going public has affected his company and whether there is another tech bubble in the works.

Edited Excerpts:

WSJ: How did being the first major Web IPO this year impact the offering?

Mr. Weiner: When we actually went public, the amount of attention and energy that went into covering the event was definitely a surprise and it lifted the company's profile to another level.

WSJ: How do you keep your employees focused on the product and not the stock price?

Mr. Weiner: Several years ago, I was reading an article about the Duke Blue Devils that mentioned that every time Coach K's [Mike Krzyzewski's] team goes up and down the court, no matter how strong or how poor the outcome, he says the same two words: next play. He doesn't want his team spending too much time celebrating something that went right or lamenting something that went wrong.

WSJ: Companies like Facebook have said they are in no rush to go public. Are there downsides to waiting?

Mr. Weiner: One of the reasons you've seen a shift in terms of the lack of urgency to go public, say compared to 10 years ago, is because you now have these deep-pocketed private equity companies that are capable of providing liquidity. I think the challenge over time is you can't necessarily create the right kind of systemic liquidity. What you've found in Silicon Valley is a number of companies enacting policies that limit the windows in which their employees can trade the stock on the secondary markets. As a result, between that and between the lack of information flow that would normally take place as a public company, you're not necessarily getting efficientvaluations.

WSJ: Is LinkedIn's valuation justified?

Mr. Weiner: We're not focused on the price or the valuation on any given day or week or even quarter to quarter. We have a long-term plan that will unfold over many years.

WSJ: But you say there are some valuations that aren't efficient. Are we in a bubble?

Mr. Weiner: I think it's important to draw a distinction between the performance of certain category leaders today versus some of the companies that were going public towards the end of the initial run-up in the late '90s.

Look at companies like Facebook, Zynga and Groupon. These companies are building real lasting businesses and it's borne out by the success they've achieved to date. Where companies aren't profitable, you're going to hear they're reinvesting in their platform.

WSJ: You're saying there's real growth; there are real business models. That doesn't necessarily mean that the valuations are justified.

Mr. Weiner: We'll leave valuation to the market. But I do know that the companies today are keenly focused on realizing their full potential, which is quite significant. That's in part because you now have infrastructure that connects hundreds of millions of people around the world in milliseconds that never existed previously.

More importantly are the behavioral changes taking place as a result of that infrastructure, the way in which people represent their identity, the way in which people are connecting with others, and the way in which they're sharing information, knowledge, opinions, ideas, everything.

WSJ: What advice would you give to other companies seeking to go public?

Mr. Weiner: A lot of the companies today that are on a trajectory ultimately to go public will experience hypergrowth. To reframe the question a little bit, what advice would I give to hypergrowth companies? An old friend of mine once described it this way: When you send a rocket out into space, if its launch trajectory is off by inches, it can be off by miles out in orbit.

Shayndi Raice

• executive [ig´zekjutiv] a.行政的 n.行政官 (初中英语单词)
• excitement [ik´saitmənt] n.兴奋；骚动；煽动 (初中英语单词)
• interview [´intəvju:] n.&vt.接见；会见；交谈 (初中英语单词)
• headquarters [´hed,kwɔ:təz] n.总部(署)，司令部 (初中英语单词)
• bubble [´bʌbəl] n.水泡 vi.冒泡；沸腾 (初中英语单词)
• actually [´æktʃuəli] ad.事实上；实际上 (初中英语单词)
• amount [ə´maunt] n.总数；数量 v.合计 (初中英语单词)
• energy [´enədʒi] n.活力，精力；能力 (初中英语单词)
• definitely [´definitli] ad.明确地；绝对 (初中英语单词)
• reading [´ri:diŋ] n.(阅)读；朗读；读物 (初中英语单词)
• capable [´keipəbəl] a.有能力；能干的 (初中英语单词)
• challenge [´tʃælindʒ] n.&vt.向....挑战；怀疑 (初中英语单词)
• valley [´væli] n.谷；河谷；流域 (初中英语单词)
• secondary [´sekəndəri, -deri] a.第二的；次要的 (初中英语单词)
• distinction [di´stiŋkʃən] n.差别；特征；卓越 (初中英语单词)
• performance [pə´fɔ:məns] n.履行；行为；工作 (初中英语单词)
• keenly [´ki:nli] ad.敏锐地；强烈地 (初中英语单词)
• billion [´biljən] num.万亿 (高中英语单词)
• revenue [´revinju:] n.税收；收入 (高中英语单词)
• necessarily [´nesisərili] ad.必定，必然地 (高中英语单词)
• efficient [i´fiʃənt] a.有效的，有能力的 (高中英语单词)
• initial [i´niʃəl] a.最初的 n.首字母 (高中英语单词)
• lasting [´lɑ:stiŋ] a.持久的；永远的 (高中英语单词)
• profitable [´prɔfitəbəl] a.有益的；有用的 (高中英语单词)
• saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
• potential [pə´tenʃəl] n.&a.潜在的；可能的 (高中英语单词)
• significant [sig´nifikənt] a.重要的；意义重大的 (高中英语单词)
• launch [lɔ:ntʃ] vt.发动 n.发射；汽艇 (高中英语单词)
• network [´netwə:k] n.网状物 vt.联播 (英语四级单词)
• outcome [´autkʌm] n.结果；后果；成果 (英语四级单词)
• unfold [ʌn´fəuld] v.展开；显露，表明 (英语四级单词)
• ultimately [´ʌltimitli] ad.最后，最终 (英语四级单词)
• hopefully [´həupfəli] ad.抱着希望地 (英语六级单词)
• valuation [,vælju´eiʃən] n.估价；价值；重要性 (英语六级单词)
• earnings [´ə:niŋz] n.收益；报酬；获得 (英语六级单词)
• affected [ə´fektid] a.做作的；假装的 (英语六级单词)
• impact [´impækt] n.影响，作用；冲击 (英语六级单词)
• profile [´prəufail] n.侧面 vt.画...侧面 (英语六级单词)
• equity [´ekwiti] n.公平；公正 (英语六级单词)
• normally [´nɔ:məli] ad.正常情况下；通常 (英语六级单词)
• category [´kætigəri] n.种类；部属；范畴 (英语六级单词)
• taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
• identity [ai´dentiti] n.身份；同一性；一致 (英语六级单词)
• rocket [´rɔkit] n.火箭；火箭发动机 (英语六级单词)