Lynda Weinman

Lynda Weinman is the founder of Lynda.com, a former digital media and graphics teacher, and an author of various computer program guides. In 2021, Weinman's net worth was valued at $325 million.

Weinman attended The Evergreen State College, where she studied humanities. She completed her degree in three years and graduated in 1976.

After college, Weinman moved back to California and opened her first two retail stores in Los Angeles, named Vertigo. She changed her career plans in 1982, when she began pursuing a career in special effects and animation. She became an animator and a motion graphics director and worked on popular films like Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure; she also directed music videos for musicians Lyle Lovett and Howard Jones.

It was around this time that Weinman began teaching herself about computers; she was intrigued by them and realized the potential they held for the future of her career. She quickly became proficient with them, and her career in animation and motion graphics became entirely computer-based. From 1989 to 1996, she taught computer graphics at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

During her teaching years, Weinman purchased the domain Lynda.com for $35 to use as a web portal resource for her students to access course materials. The transition of Lynda.com began in 1995 when Weinman––along with her husband, Bruce Heavin––began using the site to advertise in-person web design classes taught by Weinman. Her classes were incredibly popular and attracted visitors from other countries. In 1997, they opened a school for her computer classes, and the company continued to grow. The burst of the dot-com bubble in the early 2000s in the US affected Lynda.com, and Weinman was forced to let most of her staff go. In addition, she ended her in-person classes and shifted them all to online.

Lynda.com offered access to an unlimited number of web design courses for a single monthly subscription fee of $25. Subscriber growth was slow at first but soon began doubling yearly. Eventually, Lynda.com grew to offer courses on software like Adobe After Effects, XML, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and FileMaker Pro, among hundreds of others. On April 9, 2015, LinkedIn purchased Lynda.com for $1.5 billion; the site was merged into LinkedIn Learning in August 2019.

Weinman's first book, Designing Web Graphics, was published in 1996. It is credited as being the first industry book on web design. She has written a number of other books about different software programs.

• Coloring Web Graphics (1996)
• Deconstructing Web Graphics, Web Design Case Studies and Tutorials (1996)
• Designing Web Graphics (1996)
• Coloring Web Graphics.2 (1997)
• Preparing Web Graphics (1997)
• Designing Web Graphics.2 (1997)
• Creative HTML Design (1998)
• Deconstructing Web Graphics.2 (1998)
• Designing Web Graphics.3 (1999)
• Dreamweaver 2.0 Hands-On Training (1999)
• Dreamweaver 3 Hands-on-Training (2000)
• Dreamweaver 3/Fireworks 3 Hands-On Training Bundle (2000)
• Photoshop 5.5 and ImageReady 2.0 Hands-On Training (2000)
• Flash 4 Hands-On Training (2000)
• Photoshop 6 ImageReady 3 Hands-On Training (2001)
• Creative HTML Design.2 (2001)
• Dreamweaver 4 Hands-On Training (2001)
• Flash 5 Hands-On Training (2001)
• Designing Web Graphics.4: The Definitive Guide to Web Design & Development (2002)
• After Effects 5.0/5.5 Hands-On Training (2002)
• Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Hands-On Training (2003)
• Mac OS X Hands-on Training (2003)
• Adobe Acrobat 6 Hands-On Training (2003)
• Maya 6 Hands-on Training (2005)
• Adobe After Effects 7 Hands-On Training: Includes Exercise Files and Demo Movies (2006)