After a strong decade, LinkedIn CEO gracefully departs

In all my years of covering business people, I’ve never witnessed someone with a cleaner desk than LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner’s. I noted this in my 2014 profile of him, a piece that focused on how he translated meticulous career planning into an art form that proved surprisingly germane to his current gig. I visited him recently at his San Francisco office, which is probably easier to keep clean because he doesn’t use it every day, and he hasn’t grown messier with age. 

Weiner gives careerism a good name. When he took a hiatus in 2008 from having a real job—leaving a flailing Yahoo and not having yet joined a fledgling LinkedIn—he parked at not one but two venture-capital firms, Accel and Greylock. He achieved such success leading LinkedIn that the company’s founder, Reid Hoffman, called him a “late-stage founder.” His timing was great again when he and Hoffman sold out to Microsoft in 2016 for $26 billion.  

Weiner announced Monday that he’s stepping down in June as CEO and stepping up as executive chairman. Asked by LinkedIn journalist and former Coins2Day star Jessi Hempel why now, Weiner responded, as he often does, with a list of three reasons: LinkedIn’s brand has never been stronger, the future of the company is in good hands with his successor and longtime protégé Ryan Roslansky, and it’s a good time for him personally. 

It is certainly a good time for LinkedIn. Annual revenues are $7.5 billion, up from just over $2 billion five years ago. Microsoft recently disclosed that LinkedIn is growing at a 26% clip, not bad for an aged Internet company and better than Microsoft overall. (The company announced other executive moves yesterday, by the way.) 

As for Weiner, just as he has now shown a generation how to amiably advance in their careers, he’s about to show the not-quite-over-the-hill set how to age gracefully. He turns 50 in a couple of weeks, and his LinkedIn profile reflects a cornucopia of interests, from his own investment fund (“Next Play” is a favorite expression) to board seats to preaching the virtues of entrepreneurialism. 

Adam Lashinsky

Twitter: @adamlashinsky

Email: [email protected]

This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman.

NEWSWORTHY

Gene editing. Sometimes consumers do care about privacy, it seems. Sales of DNA test kits have slumped on widespread privacy concerns and now Ancestry is cutting 100 people, or 6% of its workforce. Rival 23andMe made cuts last month.

Liquid assets. Maybe he's spending it all on better phone security? Jeff Bezos sold almost $2 billion worth of Amazon stock in two days. But don't worry, he still owns another $116 billion worth of it.

I'm not gonna write you a love song. In a strange twist in the Huawei saga, the Chinese telecom giant is suing Verizon, charging that the carrier violated 12 of its patents. The lawsuit could be a warning shot fired across the bow of efforts to cut Huawei's gear out of western 5G networks.

Tears of the unicorn. Online mattress retailer Casper Sleeppriced shares for its IPO on Wednesday at $12, well below earlier hopes for as much as $19. That valued the never-profitable company at under $500 million, less than half its value in its last private fundraising.

Busy people, busy day. Speaking of Wall Street, Peloton had a merry Christmas but a bumpy New Year's. Sales for the holiday quarter jumped 77% to $466 million, but the company warned that its current quarter would miss analyst estimates. The company's shares, previously up 13% since it went public in September, dropped 8% in premarket trading on Thursday. At mobile chipmaker Qualcomm, sales increased 5% to $5.1 billion, beating analyst forecasts. But shares of Qualcomm, already up 83% over the past year, dropped 2% in premarket trading. And at Twitter, revenue for the fourth quarter rose 11% to $1 billion, better than expected. Twitter's stock price, down 2% over the past year, jumped 8% premarket.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

The impact of social media and its cadre of influencers has probably had a greater impact on the cosmetics business than any other market. Victoria Turk spent time with Glossier founder and CEO Emily Weiss for a profile in Wired UK that illuminates just how a beauty blog became a billion-dollar makeup startup. Weiss explains how her online sales model is the "third wave" of beauty product sales.

First came the beauty counter, where individual brands would sell their own product through their own representatives – which she characterises as a “teacher-student” interaction. Then came shops like LVMH-owned multinational Sephora, which put hundreds of brands in one place, with the same salesperson selling them all. Now, she says, people want to put their trust in people like them, whether that’s reading online reviews before making a purchase, buying a lipstick on the recommendation of a YouTube influencer, or just messaging a friend to ask if they think something’s a good idea. “We're in an era where people want to choose who they listen to, right?” She says. “We're in an era where people are predominantly looking to peer-to-peer connection and community to make beauty purchasing decisions.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Trying to make sense of Tesla’s unbelievable runBy Ben Carlson

AT&T just added 5G in 13 more cities. Here’s whereBy Aaron Pressman

Bitcoin is too slow. Is Lightning Labs poised to fix that?By Jeff John Roberts

Bakkt aims to turn your rewards points into a wallet you can spend anywhereBy Shawn Tully

Introducing the #BlackLitChallengeBy Ellen McGirt

Coronavirus, bird flu, swine fever: Why China is still so susceptible to disease outbreaksBy Grady McGregor

BEFORE YOU GO

Stockholm's famous photography museum, Fotografiska, has been expanding into other cities. The latest outlet is in New York City's Flatiron neighborhood and looks worth a visit for the amazing bar, in addition to all the art on the wall. Phone cameras have made people more appreciative of great pictures, Yoram Roth, chairman of the New York City museum, tells Coins2Day. "Now that everybody has 10,000 terrible pictures on their phones, there is a higher appreciation for photography, both in terms of the skill set that's required and the unique creative eye."

Aaron Pressman

On Twitter: @ampressman

Email: [email protected]