Eric Zhu, co-founder and CEO of Aviato, built an impressive company only at the age of 15. Zhu’s company is essentially a platform which facilitates start-up funding. The teenage entrepreneur from the United States even serves as an investor with Bachmanity Capital. Despite such exceptional achievements, there is one thing he still cannot do – create a LinkedIn account.

Zhu is still too young to meet the minimum age requirement of LinkedIn. It is worth noting that the business networking platform requires that its users be at least 16 years old.

So, Zhu has revealed on Twitter that this rule has put him in an awkward position with his employees as many of them are older than he is. Besides, he has had to explain why he isn’t on LinkedIn. Zhu tweeted, “I had to tell my new employee that I got banned from LinkedIn for being 15 years old today.” In his tweet, Zhu also shared a screenshot of a message that he had received from an employee.

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“Hey Eric, I was excited about my new role with your company and I couldn’t tag you in my LinkedIn post for some reason, I think you may have blocked me,” read the message.

Apart from this screenshot, Zhu shared another screenshot of his exchange with a Linkedin representative. The representative informed him that users needed to be at least 16 years old to create their accounts on the platform.

I had to tell my new employee that I got banned from linkedin for being 15 years old today… pic.twitter.com/fskiVDnpWw

— Eric Zhu (@ericzhu105) June 15, 2023

Eric Zhu’s tweet has gained traction on the microblogging platform with over 6,40,000 views.

According to reports, Zhu sold his first company at the age of 14 and his start-up firm Aviato is doing very well.

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Interestingly, Zhu manages his classes at school and his company simultaneously. Zhu’s firm has secured $1 million, in pre-seed funding from investors such as the founder of GitHub Tom Preston-Werner.

Zhu is a coding expert and lives with his parents in Indiana State. His parents are first-generation immigrants.

(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)

First Published:Jun 17, 2023 2:39 PM IST