CEO DOSSIER
Presiding over the world's biggest professional social network with 200 million members in over 200 countries, Jeff has overseen a transition in LinkedIn's history when the company’s share price doubled on its public trading debut.
early years
Jeffrey "Jeff" Weiner was born in the United States. He graduated from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 with a B.S. degree in economics.
In the late nineties, Jeff worked at Warner Brothers Online and Entertaindom, which he claims were the first entertainment destination sites on the Internet. Following this role he moved to search engine giant Yahoo! where he was in charge of Corporate Development, namely mergers and acquisitions.
Over the course of seven years Jeff held various leadership positions at the company. During his time at Yahoo's Network Division, he helped develop the company's search engine technology and was part of the leadership team that purchased Inktomi, AltaVista and FAST.
He eventually became executive vice president of the division, leading a team of 3,000 employees and managing a portfolio that reached 500 million people. Jeff oversaw the unit's open and social strategy as well as various web products including Yahoo Search, Front Doors, Communications and Community services and Media properties.
After leaving Yahoo! Jeff joined Accel Partners and Greylock Partners as executive-in-residence in 2008. In June that year, Greylock Partners alongside other venture capital firms purchased a 5% stake in LinkedIn for $53m, giving the social network site a post-money valuation of close to $1bn. Jeff was named interim president of LinkedIn later that year before being named CEO in June 2009.
As ceo
Despite Jeff becoming CEO, it was revealed that co-founder Reid Hoffman would remain as executive chairman. However Jeff said: “Working closely with Reid and the team over the past six months exceeded all of my expectations coming into the company. I couldn’t be more excited about our progress to date, and the opportunity ahead of us.”
Soon after his appointment, Jeff said he was not concerned with Facebook having more active users than LinkedIn. "It's not about the quantity of members, but their quality." He went on to add that 80% of users were university educated while a further 60% had the ability to make decisions. "These are the types of people that advertisers are attracted to."
In 2010 at a time when Facebook was receiving criticism over collecting and using personal user data, Jeff said: "I think the most important thing with regard to privacy is the value the company adds to you as a user of the company's services, by virtue of what you are sharing."
The same year under Jeff's guidance, LinkedIn received a $20m investment from Tiger Global Management LLC, the company completed the acquisition of Mspoke, and in December the company was valued at $1.575bn in private markets.
In May 2011, LinkedIn ended months of speculation by making their trading debut in a hugely successful initial public offering. It's first shares on the NYSE were valued at $45 each, however during the first day LinkedIn's individual stocks rose 171% and closed at $94.25, more than 109% above the IPO price.
Jeff said the stock would "take care of itself" and remained coy in spite of the excitement. "Speaking for myself, personally I'm not even thinking twice about where the price is today and leaving money on the table or even anything remotely along those lines."
Following this success, LinkedIn reported a 120% increase in revenues for the second quarter, prompting speculation that other Internet companies would also file for an IPO. However Jeff asserted: "Each company has to be taken on its own merits. You certainly see in this generation of consumer web leadership a number of companies with impressive results to date."
Despite a security breach that saw 6.5m members' passwords posted on a hacker website, LinkedIn saw its revenue, profit and share price increase throughout 2012 thanks largely to the company's recruiting products. These services allow potential employers to access information about members' working lives and history. LinkedIn also continued to implement new features to the site including a new notifications addition and the ability to follow high-profile figures. “The last few months mark the most significant period of product development in the company’s history,” noted Jeff in November.
As well as noting that “members are becoming increasingly active on LinkedIn”, in early 2013 Jeff looked to the future by commenting: "Our vision is to create economic opportunity for every professional."
Away from work
Jeff took a sabbatical after leaving Yahoo! to care for his first child with his wife. He enjoys relaxing with his family and playing gold but concedes, “I don't play enough to have a handicap.”
In various interviews, Jeff has remained incredibly guarded about his private life, but admits his favourite film is The Shawshank Redemption.
Jeff serves on the boards of charities DonorsChoose.org and Malaria No More.
An active user of Twitter, Jeff has over 29,984 followers on the social network (@JeffWeiner).
In own words
On communication:
"If I send an email at 3:30 in the morning, the person would think he needs to respond right away. It sends the wrong signal. I set the tone for the company."
On humour:
"Try to combine intensity with humour and don't take yourself too seriously. Changing the world is hard work, so you better take some time to laugh along the way."
