LinkedIn prepares to go public — scoops up departing Yahoo execs

June 27, 2007 | Matt Marshall | Comments | |

linkedin5.jpgLinkedIn, the Mountain View, Calif. business contact networking site, has reshuffled its entire top management in recent months, as it readies itself to go public.

In part, it is feasting off the continued exodus from Yahoo. LinkedIn first brought in a former Advent Software executive Dan Nye as chief executive. And yesterday it said Steve Sordello, who resigned from TiVo last week, will be chief financial officer, And it scored two Yahoo execs: Patrick Crane will lead marketing (at Yahoo, he marketed Yahoo Answers), and Anil Khatri will be vice president of engineering (he held the same spot at Yahoo.)

The company’s co-founders Reid Hoffman and Konstantin Guericke have both stepped down from their leadership roles. Last month, Keith Rabois, head of corporate development, departed to Slide, where he is now VP of strategy and business development.

Yesterday, LinkedIn did a big publicity push (see Reuters story), telling news outlets it has doubled membership to nearly 12 million users over the past nine months, and that it projects revenue will be around $100 million — coincidentally the number used by investment bankers as a rule of thumb for when a company is ready to go public. In other reports, Nye made a big deal about how all the execs are earning lower salaries than they were at their former companies — and instead taking equity. LinkedIn makes money from three sources: subscriptions for premium accounts, advertising, and fees from job recruiters.

In other words, this company might even file to go public sometime this fall, after the slow summer, but while the IPO window is still open — even if it won’t comment on exact dates. Reuters says it could be as “early as next year,” but who knows.

The company has raised $30 million from Sequoia Capital, Greylock and Bessemer.

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Matt Marshall is editor and CEO of VentureBeat. Follow him on Twitter at @mmarshall, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • Linked-In is definitely going mainstream...My rule of thumb is when my Dad gets on it...and he just joined.
  • Tedd
    This is a risky move for Linked in especially given the dynamic competitive situation with FaceBook and given that they are playing catch up in the area of developer APIs. The Fickle public markets will be an added distraction...May be they want to cash out when they can?
  • Dmackdaddy
    Yeah, I can see FB going IPO but no linked in. Altho there are more professional people on linked in.
  • Victor
    I think this is a fantastic idea. People underestimate the power of this company
  • Jim
    This sounds great...I am all for it.
  • Andy Smith
    Dice.com and Whitepages.com both have more profits than Linkedin has revenue and are in related markets. Web 2.0 hot air does not make up for lack of profitability.
  • The other notable investors in LinkedIn include Peter Thiel who has also invested in Facebook. Looks like the LinkedIn IPO is going to be a closely watched one. Sequoia is surely going to rake in some big moolah from this.