Lars Hinrichs
XING

XING AG (named Open Business Club until the end of 2006) is an online social business community founded in August 2003 in Hamburg, Germany, by Lars Hinrichs. The platform was officially launched on November 1, 2003. The company went public on December 7, 2006 with an issue price of €30, raising a total of €35.7 million. XING became the first Web 2.0 company to go public in Europe. Expanding its presence in global professional networking, XING has acquired other business-oriented social networks, including eConozco and Neurona, both based in Spain, and Turkey's cember.net.

Pedro Santos: How did you have the idea [for XING] and how did you implement it?

Lars Hinrichs: The idea was quite simple. It was the combination of more than one thing. I read a book, The Tipping Point¹, by Malcolm Gladwell, on the one side. And on the other side, I always wanted to know the context of my contacts, because this is actually for business reasons a most important opportunity for making new business. The people you know, basically you know by one degree of separation. So this is how it comes.