The number that they like to emphasize is their non-GAAP income (which is positive), though they report both non-GAAP and GAAP. Many tech companies report non-GAAP financials - that's not unusual. The thing with LinkedIn is that they have a major reliance on stock-based compensation, one of the highest of any tech company as a percentage of their revenue, and they do not include this compensation in their non-GAAP results (the idea here is that these are one time awards that are not "real" ongoing expenses for the company).
Issuing stock based compensation is fine, but they issue so much of it that it's an integral part of how their employees expect to be paid (so much so, that the stock taking a nose dive at least in part prompted the board to sell the company to get the stock back up). On the other hand, cash salaries certainly are taken into consideration when calculating GAAP and non-GAAP income. So you have important compensation for employees that they could never operate without rewarding, yet they remove it from their promoted non-GAAP number. I find this dishonest. It's not wrong - in fact, it's probably smart of them to do this! - but it results in them reporting a headline number that's just very removed from reality, and that lets them claim "profitability" while really not being profitable.
Issuing stock based compensation is fine, but they issue so much of it that it's an integral part of how their employees expect to be paid (so much so, that the stock taking a nose dive at least in part prompted the board to sell the company to get the stock back up). On the other hand, cash salaries certainly are taken into consideration when calculating GAAP and non-GAAP income. So you have important compensation for employees that they could never operate without rewarding, yet they remove it from their promoted non-GAAP number. I find this dishonest. It's not wrong - in fact, it's probably smart of them to do this! - but it results in them reporting a headline number that's just very removed from reality, and that lets them claim "profitability" while really not being profitable.