LinkedIn had a management shakeup last December – CEO Dan Nye stepped down. Founding CEO Reid Hoffman stepped in again and former Yahoo exec Jeff Weiner joined the company as President.
The hiring of Weiner as President was clearly an interim move, and we predicted he’d move into the CEO role sometime this year: “The addition of Weiner is also quirky, and may explain the changes. Weiner was likely expecting a CEO role as his next job. He’s now second to Hoffman. Perhaps the company is using the interim period to see how he can handle himself leading the company. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Weiner take the CEO job at LinkedIn sometime in 2009, or else leave the company.” It turns out that is exactly what happened.
LinkedIn continues to roll. They are the fifth most valuable social network according to our recent model. The site attracts over 15 million monthly unique visitors (Comscore worldwide, April 2009), up from less than 7 million a year ago, and has 42 million registered profiles. They’ve been ebitda profitable since last year and say they plan to be cash flow positive this year. In February, Hoffman told me “We can go public any time we want to.”
And Weiner agrees, telling me today that their current plan to to build an independent public company, with three key revenue sources: premium subscriptions, corporate solutions and advertising. To date the company has raised over $100 million. The last round, a year ago, valued the company at just over $1 billion.
Hoffman will stay with the company, becoming the executive chairman. This is a full time exec role, he says, not just a board of directors seat. For his part, Weiner has already managed day to day operations of the company. Hoffman says he has done “an exceptional job leading the company.”
It was just a year ago that we broke the news of Weiner’s departure from a troubled Yahoo. Weiner first joined Yahoo when former CEO Terry Semel took charge in 2000 and was one of the top execs when he departed, running the Network division (which included Yahoo’s home page, mail, search and media properties). Former Yahoo president Sue Decker gave him a nice sendoff when he resigned. Prior to joining LinkedIn Weiner was an EIR at both Accel Partners and Greylock Partners.
Here’s the full press release:
LinkedIn Names Jeff Weiner Chief Executive Officer
Co-founder Reid Hoffman continues as Executive Chairman
Mountain View, CA —June 24, 2009— LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network, today announced that Jeff Weiner has been named LinkedIn’s chief executive officer and appointed to the board of directors. Reid Hoffman will remain focused on LinkedIn in his day-to-day role as founder and executive chairman.
Since joining LinkedIn as interim president in January 2009, Weiner has overseen all operations and played a defining role in developing and executing the company’s strategy to address the accelerating demand for LinkedIn’s products and services on a global basis. “Working closely with Reid and the team over the past six months exceeded all of my expectations coming into the company,” said Weiner. “I couldn’t be more excited about our progress to date, and the opportunity ahead of us.”
“LinkedIn was founded to harness the power of the internet to create a tool that would help individuals become more effective and successful professionals,” said Reid Hoffman, co-founder and executive chairman, LinkedIn. “Over the past six months, Jeff has done an exceptional job leading the company and I look forward to continuing the work that we have begun together.”
In the past year, LinkedIn has achieved records across virtually all key operating and financial metrics, most recently exceeding 42 million global members. LinkedIn has an established business model with three lines of revenue, including premium subscriptions, corporate solutions and advertising. The company operated profitably in 2008 and is expected to be profitable in 2009. LinkedIn has secured more than $100 million in funding from some of the world’s premiere investors.
Weiner brings more than 14 years of consumer web experience to the position. Prior to joining LinkedIn as interim president, Weiner was executive in residence at Accel Partners and Greylock Partners. He had previously held key leadership roles at Yahoo!, most recently serving as executive vice president of Yahoo!’s Network Division with responsibility for Yahoo!’s consumer web product portfolio, including Yahoo!’s Front Page, Mail, Search and Media products. In addition to LinkedIn, Weiner serves on the boards of DonorsChoose.org and Malaria No More. For more information, please see Jeff Weiner’s LinkedIn profile at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffweiner08.
About LinkedIn
LinkedIn takes your personal business network online, giving you access to people, jobs and opportunities like never before. Built upon trusted connections and relationships, LinkedIn has established the world’s largest and most powerful professional network. Currently, over 42 million professionals are on LinkedIn, representing all five hundred of the Fortune 500 companies, as well as a wide range of household names in technology, financial services, media, consumer packaged goods, entertainment, fashion, and numerous other industries. LinkedIn is backed by world-class investors including Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, the European Founders Fund, Bessemer Venture Partners, Bain Capital Ventures, Goldman Sachs, The McGraw-Hill Companies, and SAP Ventures.
Hi Michael,
I think its a good move and LinkedIn will benefit from it and will keep growing as a company.
Thanks for the post.
Mani Raj
Havoc Marketing
mike
what’s his education and technical background?
Hoffman: not cool.
Its funny how Facebook is valued at $8 billion (latest) when their revenue is at $500 million, and LinkedIn is only valued at $1 billion with much higher revenue.
Where does it say what their revenue is? The question is how much value does each user/customer have for facebook/linkedin. If you can have 500 CEO’s in a network or 1,000 college freshmen, which group would have higher salaries and net worth. Additionally, the freshmen would create negative value if they take up all your server space with photos and videos.
>> If you can have 500 CEO’s in a network or 1,000 college freshmen, which group would have higher salaries and net worth.
However, I’m guessing the freshmen on FB are logging in and using FB with much more frequency than the CEOs are using LI. Don’t you think?
So part of this is not just about the signups and their makeup, but how deeply the sites are ingrained in their day-to-day business.
Having said that, I see your point and am not advocating one way or another (heck, I wrote a book on LinkedIn…. and think they are quite relevant).
“Linked in” photo thing’ie sucks. I like to see the person I’m doing business with, they don’t allow photos in scale like the facebook. Linked in should consider a more robust photo system. People love photos and will always link to them.
Linkedin is one of the most useful sites on the web, unquestionably better than faddish sites like Facebook or twitter.
Heads up Mike:
On the techcrunch splash page this line:
“They’ve been ebitda profitable since last year…”
is reading:
They’ve been ebitda profitable SINE last year…”
Not sure why.
I thought I would tell you before some troll comments on grammatical errors. BOO Trolls!
Yes, I don’t think Jeff Weiner is very well liked and many do blame him for Yahoo’s demise defeat in the Search category.
i agree i know a few people at yahoo who really did not agree or go along with the direction which he would present…a really really bad move for linkedin…then again, it just linkedin and who really cares.
yeah, yahoo was falling apart. everyone hated everyone. but jeff was solid.
Item one should be to open up app development. Not completely open, since we don’t want LinkedIn to turn into an app wasteland like Facebook, but surely there can be a way to encourage better app development for LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is now officially the next Friendster! Weiner will work his magic there just like he did for Yahoo! Search! The guy’s biggest success is as Terry Semel’s bitch. LinkedIn = fail.
Linkedin is thing of the past. Their time is somewhat over. They should have sold LinkedIn a year ago.
Plus, I would really like to know total percentage of people who are paying customers. Is there a reason why Linkedin is hiding that number?
congrats Jeff!
No doubt he was one of the smarter yahoos but Jeff’s main legacy, aside from questionable product strategy, was cultivating a cadre of ass-kissers and political snakes. From what I know of linkedin he will fit in just fine.
jeff’s a pretty solid guy, was really impressed with his ability to communicate and rally the troups while i was at yahoo. that said, he was also the biggest pusher of social media at yahoo, and i think a lot of his ideas were not monetizable and sent yahoo in the wrong direction for too long.
that said, i’d imagine he’ll do well at linkedin. very different company that has proven it knows how to make money the social space.
I had the pleassure of spending some time with Jeff and talking to him about product development etc.. He’s a really smart guy whose is able to distill and focus your ideas. Everyone here is talking about linkedin is over but it’s a real business. People talk about Twitter and facebook all day, which are both great tools but are still trying to lock down a scalable revenue model. linkedin has one and it’s making money. Good luck Jeff! well deserved