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The World Economic Forum has stated that the economy is experiencing the fourth industrial revolution, transforming how and where work gets done.   Work is increasingly no longer constrained by location due to advances in technology.

In the fourth industrial revolution, instead of the worker moving to the workplace, we are seeing that work is moving to the worker—collaboration is less constrained than ever before by physical proximity and geographic borders, particularly for highly-skilled professionals.

LinkedIn’s model is built on the 3rd industrial revolution, where you post jobs and then relocate workers to you corporate headquarters.  Prior to smart phones, SalesForce, Skype, and the plethora of other high-speed internet enabled technology, it was imperative for teams to collaborate in person, at the office.

Today that is no longer the case.

Moreover, for many companies work is one-off or on an as-needed basis.   Companies are willing to pay a premium to access a top rated freelance designer or copywriter on Upwork versus hiring them full-time.

The reality is that most companies have not heard of Upwork, and many highly talented freelancers have never been on the network.

Additionally on LinkedIn it takes an average time of 30 days to hire an executive, whereas on Upwork it takes less than 1 day to hire a freelancer.   Imagine if all executives on LinkedIn, whether full-time employed or between jobs, had the ability to access Upwork automatically to supplement their incomes.    The ability for businesses on LinkedIn to automatically hire freelancers would be exceptionally powerful, and would assuredly create a new, highly viable source of revenue for both Microsoft and Upwork.

Microsoft and Upwork entered a formal partnership last month.   Upwork's CEO, Stephane Kasriel, said that Upwork doesn’t plan similar deals with Microsoft competitors like Google’s G Suite workplace software or Slack.

“Right now that is not the plan,” Kasriel said.

Both Upwork and Microsoft declined to comment on this story.

Disclaimer: As a company that uses Upwork on a daily basis, many of us freelancers have made an investment in UPWK.   We believe in the platform fully.