All Things Digital

In a move that many in the Silicon Valley chattering classes were certainly wondering about, former Yahoo exec Jeff Weiner has been named CEO of LinkedIn, the largest social network focused on professionals.

Weiner, 39, who has been the president of the Mountain View, Calif.-based company since late last year, will also join the board of directors.

Current CEO, Chairman and founder Reid Hoffman will become executive chairman and will continue to work on a daily basis at LinkedIn. He said the move was not part of preparations for an initial public offering but because Weiner had already been handling the duties of CEO for some time.

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Last week, StumbleUpon announced it was buying itself out of its much-vaunted previous corporate buyout, by being born again as an “investor-baked start-up.”

The Canadian-born social-bookmarking company, which was launched earlier, came to the Bay area in 2006 and got some fancy venture investors and soon became a traffic-generating hit.

Then StumbleUpon was bought by eBay two years ago for $75 million in one of Web 2.0’s high points.

End of a fairy tale? Um, nope.

Here’s CEO and co-founder Garrett Camp, talking to BoomTown in a video interview about it all.

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The content-discovery service, StumbleUpon, has gotten itself back to start-up status, after being bought by eBay two years ago.

It announced today that it was returning to being an “investor-backed startup” by a roster of well-known Silicon Valley investors, including Ram Shriram of Sherpalo Ventures, Accel Partners and August Capital.

Its founders, Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith, are also back, with Camp now in place as CEO.

“We are grateful to eBay for its guidance. However, we realized there were few long-term synergies between the two businesses. It is best for us to part ways and focus on our respective strengths,” said Camp, stating the very obvious.

That’s quite a boomerang since it was acquired by the auction giant in 2007 for $75 million.

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Another Goog-Bye.

Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, president of Google’s Asia-Pacific and Latin American operations, is leaving the company and joining Silicon Valley venture firm Accel Partners as a CEO-in-residence.

Cassidy, 39, is one of the search giant’s more visible execs and one of its higher-ranking women leaders and also the second top Google exec to depart the company recently.

While exec exodus from Google is much noticed, the moves are probably not surprising given that the powerful company–as it matures–has limited avenues for its typically ambitious managers.

“I was at the end of my streak [at Google] and ready to take the next step and run or grow my own company,” Cassidy said in an interview with BoomTown late tonight. “It is key for me to be stepping out and spreading my wings now.”

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Last week, I went to the 15th Stanford Accel Symposium, hosted by Stanford University’s MediaX and the VC firm Accel Partners.

With the honking big title of “The Delta Conference: The Impact of 2008 Dramatic Events on the World of Digital Media and Technology,” it included a panel on online media with a stellar gang, all talking about microblogging, content and where it is all going in this economic environment.

It was kind of like “The View,” except all guys in khakis and oxford shirts. You know, a typical Silicon Valley gathering.

Here are video interviews with the panelists.

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Well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur Reid Hoffman will become CEO of LinkedIn again, taking on the job he had for nearly four years after founding the business networking company in 2003. Hoffman replaces current CEO Dan Nye, who has resigned and will leave the company in mid-January. More interesting in the shift is the appointment of former Yahoo exec Jeff Weiner as interim president, overseeing day-to-day operations at LinkedIn.

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Bucking a trend of contraction in the venture industry, Accel Partners today announced that it had raised two funds totaling $1 billion.

The well-known VC firm said that it had closed the $480 million Accel Growth Fund and the $525 million Accel London III.

The first will be managed from its Palo Alto, Calif., HQ, focusing on “growth equity” across several sectors, while the London fund will be managed there and aim to invest in early-stage and growth companies across Europe and Israel.

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Earlier this week, in a piece about Yahoo layoffs, BoomTown reiterated the notion that Yahoo would pick its next CEO to replace its current leader Jerry Yang from its own board or some dark horse CEO, rather than one of the Web’s more high-profile players.

The Wall Street Journal raised such a name in a piece today–former Vodafone Group CEO Arun Sarin.

It’s an intriguing idea, to be sure, since Sarin meets the list of six key criteria the board has created, including having public company CEO experience.

But there are other dark horses who fit that bill.

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While there are very few bright spots to look at in the start-up space in Silicon Valley these days, especially those relying on online advertising, the San Mateo, Calif.-based AdMob is at least slightly shiny.

The company, backed by Sequoia Capital, just got a big slug of funding–almost $16 million–to keep pushing to get ads on mobile phones, which has gotten a huge boost from the popularity of the iPhone.

The number of ads AdMob is serving on the iPhone jumped to more than 100 million in September, compared to 35 million the month before, for example.

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According to sources, Facebook is moving to eliminate its observer status slot from its board. That position is currently held by Greylock Partners David Sze.

The reasons might be as simple as the fact that as Facebook grows, it needs a more formal board process, especially as it prepares for a public offering sometime in the future.

In that case, the observer slot might be eliminated, as the company moves to add more members to the board.

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In a move BoomTown is still trying to noodle over, longtime Facebook exec Matt Cohler (pictured here) will be leaving the social networking site to become a general partner at Benchmark Capital.

Cohler, who is currently Facebook’s VP of Product Management, was one of its earliest hires and, as I wrote once, seemed to me like “the Yoda figure at Facebook to me.”

He will not leave the prominent social networking company for the venture capital firm until the fall, though.

And, after he goes, Cohler will remain as a “special advisor” to Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and senior management.

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Oh the sweet irony of Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg getting awarded a big round glass object, suitable for mantel-showing-off, from Harvard types.

Especially since he is now the school’s second most famous tech mogul dropout–after Microsoft’s Bill Gates.

But that was the case last night at the San Francisco Airport Hyatt Regency, where the 24-year-old Zuckerberg collected the 30th Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award from the Harvard Business School Association of Northern California.

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BoomTown was press-ganged into attending an afternoon showing of “Kung Fu Panda” with a pair of six-year-olds (who afterwards hiii-yaaa-kicked every trash can in sight), or I would have posted Yahoo President Sue Decker’s letter to the troops she sent out today about the departure of Network division head Jeff Weiner earlier.

Actually, the movie about a misfit who conquers despite the odds would make a nice metaphor for Yahoo these days, especially if the company could be motivated to excellence simply by a desire for tasty dumplings.

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Jeff Weiner, as BoomTown reported in a story broken by BoomTown Tuesday and also yesterday, will be leaving Yahoo to become an entrepreneur in residence at both Accel Partners and Greylock Partners.

But, despite a lot of speculation, sources at the company said that Weiner will not likely be replaced as Network division head by one of his four direct reports.

Instead, sources at the company think much of Weiner’s organization could be headed by Hilary Schneider, who is EVP Global Partner Solutions, in order to better align Yahoo’s ad revenue-producing units with its products, software, search and services side.

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Yesterday, writing about executive stress at Yahoo, BoomTown posted about the swirling speculation around the fate of Jeff Weiner, the Network division EVP, who many at Yahoo think will soon be headed out the door after his recent paternity leave of four weeks.

Now, several sources in Silicon Valley’s voluble venture community confirm the high-ranking exec has been offered and seems likely to accept a spot splitting his time as an executive in residence at two firms–Accel Partners and Greylock Partners.

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