Jeff Weiner (born as Jeffrey Weiner on February 21st, 1970), is an American businessman through and through. He was born in New York, New York, and became best-known for being the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the professional, social networking website, LinkedIn!
He joined the LinkedIn team in 2008 and helped grow it into the platform that it is today. He also was a key player in its eventual acquisition by Microsoft (who bought LinkedIn for 26 billion dollars in June 2016.)
Jeff Weiner, to this day, is acknowledged as one of the most famous executives of the generation. Having since reached and maintained a net worth of over $100 million in the past decade. While he was not the original creator of LinkedIn, he was instrumental in helping the platform grow so big. And, of course, this expertise naturally led him into similar roles in the future.
Learn a little bit more about the life of Jeff Weiner in the breakdown of all of his greatest accomplishments over the years below:
Jeff Weiner | Background
Jeffrey Weiner was born in New York City, New York. He likes to keep much of his personal life private, so not much is known about his early life. But, we do know that he purchased a 5 million dollar home in Silicon Valley and that he lives there to this day with his wife (Lisette Weiner) and their children.
We also know that he attended the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. There, he received a Bachelor of Science in Economics degree.
Much of his early career also suggest a strong interest in technology. But we’ll get into that in more detail in the next section:
Jeff Weiner | Early Career
Now to go over the positions Jeff Weiner had held in his early career that helped lead him to where he is today. Starting with his position at Warner Bros Entertainment Inc.!
Warner Bros Entertainment Inc.
After graduating from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Jeff Weiner began working for Warner Bros in 1994! Warner Bros, as you are no doubt already aware, is also known as Warner Bros Entertainment Inc (or WB). It’s a film distribution and production company in the United States (with its headquarters in Burbank, California.)
The company had been around long before Jeff Weiner joined in, having been founded in 1923. It produced thousands of films in this time, which includes the much beloved Harry Potter Series, Superman, Batman, The Hobbit, The Matrix, and so much more.
When asked by PandoDaily about why he had chosen this career, Jeff Weiner had this to say: “I didn’t actually want to be a media mogul but I did want to learn by working with them… In truth, I was more interested in true educational reform, even then. And when I was first exposed to the web in 1991 or 1992 and realized how it could be utilized to facilitate the flow of knowledge… well I caught the bug…”
Entertaindom | Executive Vice President
Not long after landing a position with this giant in the entertainment industry, Jeff Weiner had actually put forth the suggestion that they move the company forwards in time with an online segment. This report, which he had written up very early in his career at Warner Bros. is what led to his eventual position as the Vice President of the company. In an interview with Forbes, Weiner had even said, once, that at the time he was “just this little pisher, a nobody.” But that, “they liked the report.” And so, he was given the opportunity to explore the web some more and build on his expertise in the subject.
The online segment was later called Entertaindom, a Warner site that launched original content — like clips, cartoons, games, news, etc. And it saw some pretty good results.
For this project, he had the help of two other executives. And, with them, they built up Entertaindom to the point where they considered giving it an IPO. However, just before then, AOL bought Time Warner and decided to shut down the project for good, leading to Weiner leaving Warner Bros.
Windsor Media & Yahoo! | Top Executive
All was not lost for Jeff Weiner, however. He was picked up by the previous CEO of Warner Bros, Terry Semel, for his investment firm, Windsor Media. There he was placed exactly where he would be able to make the most of his hard-won expertise — which was to capitalize on all Internet-based opportunities.
And, later he follows Terry Semel to Yahoo in 2001 — quickly shooting up the ranks and landing a position as a top executive from the get-go.
His particular responsibilities there also echo what he’s grown to become an expert of, as he was quickly put in charge of handling Yahoo’s network division. There he led a team with over 3,000 team members — which analyzed data coming from almost half a billion of their customers.
He was also a part of the Search Leadership Team — which worked on the development of Yahoo’s Search Development Technology! Near the end of his tenure there, there had even been talks of him becoming the next CEO. However, when that didn’t go through, despite having spent over seven years at Yahoo, he ended up leaving in 2008 to explore other opportunities.
Jeff Weiner | History with LinkedIn
Despite having just been separated from the company he had poured his soul into for over seven years, Jeff Weiner did not remain idle for long. He worked on his next play immediately, and with a clear vision of how to get to the future, he (and his team of expert professionals) were able to set LinkedIn towards the path of success.
Accel Partners and Greylock Partners | Executive-in-Residence
Before LinkedIn, however! Let’s first cover what Jeff Weiner was doing during the brief one-year hiatus (2008-2009) between Yahoo and LinkedIn!
And that was his position as executive-in-residence at both Accel Partners and Greylock Partners. With both firms having been competitors it had definitely been an unusual position to get himself involved in. Nevertheless, he saw both firms through and offered his support to them to uncover future investment opportunities.
LinkedIn! | Interim President & Chief Executive Officer
In 2009, Jeff Weiner found his way to the business-related website for business professionals, LinkedIn, where he was named CEO within June the same year. There, he started up a team that he called “BizOps” who were there to support him in his efforts to keep the company moving forward.
This team, also called Business Operations and Analytics, made up over 120 LinkedIn Employees that helped grow the company from the 50 million members it started within 2009 to 275 million members by 2014 (not to mention the numbers in revenue, which jumped from $120 million to $1.5 billion during this time period).
It should also be noted that Jeff Weiner had done such a good job at monetizing LinkedIn that he was able to get an IPO in 2011. This success helped earn Jeff Weiner the title ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ at EY in that same year. And, the appreciation of LinkedIn Employees under his leadership earned him a spot in the “Top 10 CEOs of US Tech Companies” in 2014.
As mentioned in the beginning, Jeff Weiner also played a key role in LinkedIn being sold to Microsoft. After stocks had dropped drastically in 2016 (over 43% when compared to 2015), he agreed to a deal with Microsoft and sold the company for $26 billion.
During this same period, he received much attention from the media after donating his $14 million stock bonus to LinkedIn Employees after the drop in stock
LinkedIn! | Executive Chairman
Eventually, hoping to pursue other dreams and goals, Jeff Weiner decided that he would be stepping down as the CEO of LinkedIn. This was addressed in early February of 2020. And, in his place, he named Ryan Roslansky.
He is still a part of LinkedIn, however. Now as LinkedIn’s Executive Chairman. Which is a position he believes would give him a better chance at closing the network gap and increasing the benefits of using the platform. As someone who had been leading the company at the help since 2008 (much longer than even his stint at Yahoo, Jeffrey has much to celebrate over.
During that time, he had helped LinkedIn grow to over half a billion members (675 million, to be exact), and with Microsoft’s backing, they were able to come out as overall winners in revenue as well.
Jeff Weiner | Other Pursuits
The Compassion Project | Origins
Jeff Weiner has been known to express kindness quite openly — especially when it came to the members of his team or just the people who worked under him in general. But there are other ways that he’s come to show the world just how much he cares. These other pursuits have been his main driving force in recent years.
The Compassion Project | The Mission
During a speech at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania (which he was an alumnus of), this is how Jeff Weiner introduced his Compassion Project:
“One of the questions I’m most frequently asked is what advice would I give my 22-year-old self? The advice I would give my 22-year old self is to be compassionate. I wasn’t very compassionate when I was your age. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t particularly compassionate until the latter stage of my career. And if it weren’t for learning the meaning and value of compassion, it’s likely I wouldn’t be on this stage today. So that’s what I’d like to talk to you about. The importance of being compassionate, and how it can change your career path, your company, and your life.”
During this impassioned speech, Weiner recounts, multiple times, how he believed learning to be compassionate has helped him find success.
On The Compassion Project website, he goes on to say: “Compassion is a skill that enables you to see the world through the eyes of another person in order to alleviate their suffering or help them. I can’t think of anything more important right now that could help the world start to reconnect and heal.”
Jeff Weiner | Frequently Asked Questions
Jeff Weiner | Famous Quotes
Before we finish this off, we’ve also answered some of the more frequently asked questions about Jeff Weiner below.”
Q: What is Jeff Weiner’s Net Worth?
The most recent reports on Jeffrey have his net worth valued at around $200 million.
Q: What does Jeff Weiner do now?
As of 2021, Weiner continues to work as the Executive Chairman of LinkedIn — from a professional standpoint. However, he does have other interests that he’s currently pursuing, including his Compassion Project.
Q: Why Jeff Weiner is a good leader?
When it comes to leadership, Weiner’s approach has always been to start with a clear vision of what you’re looking to achieve and work from there. Which enables him to help any business that he is put in charge of to move towards the right future.
Q: What is compassionate management?
Compassionate management is Weiner’s current approach to business management. The main premise of it is to be more empathetic towards one’s employees in order to determine how best to move forward.
Q: How old is Jeff Weiner?
Having been born on February 21, 1970, Weiner is currently 51 years old.
Jeff Weiner | Famous Quotes
- “It starts with vision and the clarity of vision.”
- “Managing compassionately is not just a better way to build a team, it’s a better way to build a company.”
- “Create the right culture, and you create a competitive advantage.”
