In the video above Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman discuss the partnership between the two companies. It is cool that LinkedIn is getting a real-time status update boost with the help of Twitter but comparing it to peanut butter and chocolate just seems off-putting. Especially as they look at each other in the video when they make the comparison. To Stone’s credit, I did enjoy his interview with Stephen Colbert.
Greylock Partners is tapping the business skills that Reid Hoffman has by making him an investing partner at the VC firm. Hoffman will work as the Chairman of LinkedIn at the same time. As part of the announcement that Greylock made, the company announced a $575 million round of funding. Currently Jeff Weiner is the CEO of LinkedIn.
In the past 6 six years, Hoffman has invested in Facebook, Digg, Flickr, Zynga and several other companies. “I definitely wear too many hats,” stated Hoffman as quoted by VentureBeat. “[Greylock and I] both wanted to make sure we had good, aligned interests. My interest was that I would continue to be massively focused on LinkedIn, and their interest was that I would help provide intelligence on the consumer Internet.”
Greylock is also an investor in LinkedIn. LinkedIn has over a $1 billion valuation based on their last rounds of funding. LinkedIn raised about $103 million in funding from Sequoia, Bain Capital, SAP Ventures, Goldman Sachs, McGraw Hill, Bessemer, Greylock, and the European Founders Fund. Hoffman worked at PayPal shortly before the acquisition and is considered one of the PayPal Mafia members.
Last year Dan Nye stepped down as the LinkedIn CEO and co-founder Reid Hoffman filled in. Jeff Weiner, a former Yahoo! executive also became President of the social network. Now Weiner will become the CEO of LinkedIn.
LinkedIn receives about 15 million monthly unique visitors and has about 42 million registered users. LinkedIn is profitable and could go public at any time. LinkedIn’s three revenue sources include premium subscriptions, corporate solutions, and an advertising platform.
Reid Hoffman will serve as the executive chairman of the company. Weiner was EVP of Yahoo!’s Network division before leaving to become an entrepreneur-in-residence at Accel and Greylock.
