Key Takeaways
- LinkedIn has hired three-time world Sudoku champion Thomas Snyder as its first-ever principal puzzlemaster.
- Snyder has created more than 10,000 puzzles across his career, and intends for LinkedIn games to be a daily brain warm-up that could lead to fun discussions with colleagues.
- LinkedIn views games as part of a “very intentional path” that the platform has taken, Laksh Somasundaram, senior director of product at LinkedIn, told Business Insider.
LinkedIn offers members access to free puzzles as part of a deliberate engagement strategy.
The architect behind LinkedIn’s puzzle push is Thomas Snyder, a three-time world Sudoku champion and longtime creator of logic puzzles, Business Insider recently reported. Before joining LinkedIn full-time in October as its first-ever principal puzzlemaster, he had already authored or edited over 10,000 games across formats, from pen-and-paper magazines to digital platforms.
The 46-year-old now crafts or edits logic games for LinkedIn’s more than one billion members.
LinkedIn debuted games in 2024 and now offers seven puzzles, which users can access daily. Games include Zip, where users draw a single path through a grid to connect numbered dots in order, and Patches, where players fill a grid with rectangles and squares.
The puzzles have quickly become popular; 80% of users who play a game return the following day, according to LinkedIn. Players can tap into a scoreboard to see how quickly they solved a puzzle compared to other players in their network, adding a competitive element.
Snyder’s beginnings
Snyder started his career in biotechnology after completing a Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard University. He spent over a decade leading research groups dedicated to disease detection, making puzzles on the side as a hobby.
In 2012, he left research to go full-time on his own puzzle business, Grandmaster Puzzles. Within a year, the company scored a regular feature in Penny Dell Puzzles, a puzzle magazine publisher, per Business Insider. Companies like Netflix and LinkedIn soon began reaching out to him, asking for content.
Though making and solving puzzles has always been Snyder’s “favorite thing to do,” he still has trouble thinking of the process as a career. “It’s been tricky to think that puzzles can be a full profession,” he told Business Insider.
Snyder acknowledged that “LinkedIn isn’t a games company” — but said that the workplace connection site benefits from games “as a means of fun.” He told Business Insider that he intends for LinkedIn games to be a daily brain warm-up that could lead to fun discussions with colleagues.
He added that every puzzle LinkedIn publishes is created by a human author.
Why LinkedIn is making a push into games
LinkedIn views games as part of a broader engagement strategy. Platforms add games to keep users engaged and coming back, Michael Pachter, a games-industry analyst at Wedbush Securities, told Business Insider. It works because “the achievement” of completing the puzzle and achieving a high score in comparison to other players “validates that the time was well spent,” he said.
Laksh Somasundaram, senior director of product at LinkedIn, told Business Insider that puzzles are part of a “very intentional path” that the platform has taken. “When we look at the world’s best workplaces and how connections and bonds are formed between colleagues, fun is always a core part of that,” Somasundaram told the outlet.
Games have recently become an integral part of media companies. For example, The New York Times acquired Wordle, the word puzzle game, in 2022 and credited the game with attracting millions of new users to its digital platform.
Joshua Lee, a software engineer based in New York, wrote in a recent LinkedIn post that he had completed a one-year streak playing LinkedIn games. He said that the benefits of playing games daily from a user’s perspective were increased problem-solving skills and dedication.
“Turns out, building delightful software and solving daily puzzles aren’t that different,” Lee wrote. “Both require patience, deliberate pattern recognition and the relentless desire to wake up and tackle a new problem every day.”
Key Takeaways
- LinkedIn has hired three-time world Sudoku champion Thomas Snyder as its first-ever principal puzzlemaster.
- Snyder has created more than 10,000 puzzles across his career, and intends for LinkedIn games to be a daily brain warm-up that could lead to fun discussions with colleagues.
- LinkedIn views games as part of a “very intentional path” that the platform has taken, Laksh Somasundaram, senior director of product at LinkedIn, told Business Insider.
LinkedIn offers members access to free puzzles as part of a deliberate engagement strategy.
The architect behind LinkedIn’s puzzle push is Thomas Snyder, a three-time world Sudoku champion and longtime creator of logic puzzles, Business Insider recently reported. Before joining LinkedIn full-time in October as its first-ever principal puzzlemaster, he had already authored or edited over 10,000 games across formats, from pen-and-paper magazines to digital platforms.
The 46-year-old now crafts or edits logic games for LinkedIn’s more than one billion members.
