The "verified" badge on there is a good heuristic for who not to follow (if not outright block them) because those are not people anymore, but marketing/PR operations.

LinkedIn desperately tries to get me to “follow” the people you mentioned which I always ignore however not following them still doesn’t isolate you from the noise.

It seems like everyone on LinkedIn is trying to be an “influencer” or wannabe thought leader posting bullshit motivational content or presenting obvious facts as something groundbreaking.

Did you choose to follow those people at some point? I get regular "recommendations" on who to follow on LinkedIn, including Gates, Nadella, and Branson, but I never take them. And I don't have any content in my feed from any of those folks.

All the content in my feed is from my connections or interactions by my connections. Of course there is plenty of vapid "thought-leader" content from them too.

Actually I've gotten some amusement from watching a few former colleagues overtly try the "LinkedIn thought leader" thing. Kind of funny to observe the (sometimes very large) gap between what they post and what I know they used to do in their day jobs.

>>Kind of funny to observe the (sometimes very large) gap between what they post and what I know they used to do in their day jobs

And hence the saying "Nobody is a prophet in their own land".

>Did you choose to follow those people at some point?

Maybe one or two of them. But I don't even know who Guy Kawasaki is.

To name a few but you're missing the top dogs the ones who can't even squeeze any more connections and give advice on how to gain more connections.