Eric Zhu, 15-year-old Founder and CEO of Aviato.
Eric Zhu, 15-year-old Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Aviato, has joined the list of teenagers to be banned by the popular job search website LinkedIn over the minimum age criteria. This has left the high school student in an awkward situation with his employees, many of whom are older than him since he has had to explain why they cannot message or tag him on LinkedIn.
He took to Twitter to share the same and wrote, "I had to tell my new employee that I got banned from LinkedIn for being 15 years old today..." Alongside this, he also shared a screenshot of a message he received from an employee which read: "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 me blocked."
He also shared a screenshot of his conversation with a LinkedIn employee who stated that he doesn't meet the required age criteria of 16 and therefore he will no longer be able to access his account on the networking platform.
Since being shared, his post has amassed a lot of attention from social media users.
"Let's not discriminate based on ageism," said a user.
Another person said, "Facing the same issues some policies need to change! @LinkedIn please 15 yr olds need a chance"
"In ten years when you buy LI you can change that rule..." commented a user.
Mr Zhu is also serving as an investor with Bachmanity Capital. The high school student from Indiana, US, describes his company Aviato as the "ultimate startup search engine for venture funds." Tom Preston-Werner, the Founder of GitHub and the owners of Sacramento Kings have invested $1 million in the business as pre-seed capital.
A few days ago, Kairan Quazi, a 14-year-old software engineer at SpaceX was also banned from the platform over the age criteria. He questioned how he could be qualified to land "one of the most coveted engineering jobs in the world and not have access to the networking platform".