Well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur Reid Hoffman (pictured here) 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. He came to LinkedIn almost two years ago and was positioned then as the person who was going to eventually be taking LinkedIn public.

More interesting in the shift is the appointment of former Yahoo exec Jeff Weiner as interim president, overseeing day-to-day operations at LinkedIn.

Weiner has been an executive-in-residence at both Accel Partners and Greylock Partners (a LinkedIn investor) since he left Yahoo earlier this year.

He will remain at those venture firms during the transition, even though he will be working at LinkedIn too. At Yahoo (YHOO), Weiner was EVP of the Network Division, which included all of its consumer-facing units.

In an interview earlier today, Hoffman portrayed the changes as friendly, praising Nye’s efforts as top exec, noting the company’s growth from eight million members to 33 million, reaching profitability, and its $53 million in funding in June at a $1 billion valuation.

But, Hoffman said, “We came to the decision that I needed to be working full time, driving the vision.”

Nye (pictured here) noted the recent hiring of Google (GOOG) exec Dipchand “Deep” Nishar as VP of products, which he spearheaded, was an important moment. Hoffman had been in charge of products.

“I wanted to grow this company into a world-class operation,” he said. “Now, Reid needs no friction, so he can move quickly and do what’s necessary for the next phase.”

Weiner (pictured here) said he was looking forward to getting back into operations, after playing an advisory role recently. “I have been really impressed with the company the leadership team has built,” he said. “I see a lot more potential going forward.”

Although it has raised $100 million in total, LinkedIn has not been immune to the recent economic weakness across Silicon Valley. It recently did some layoffs too, and has been focusing much more on increasing the number of revenue streams it has.

Below is a video interview I did with Weiner in June of 2007, when he was still at Yahoo.

And, below that is another I did with Nye, nine months after he first got to LinkedIn, in which he talks about his plans for the company. (Yes, that is a Hawaiian shirt, and Nye does give Yahoo advice in it.)

Weiner:

Nye:

In an interview with Tech Trader Daily, CEO Dan Nye noted that the company has a strong balance sheet, with no debt, and growing revenue.

Read the rest of this post

Back in November, I did a video interview with LinkedIn CEO Dan Nye (pictured here) about the fast-growing, in-play business social network.

We talked about the future of LinkedIn and what it all means.

As BoomTown noted then, LinkedIn was the “‘professional’ social network, the serious cousin to the party-hearty twins of MySpace and Facebook.”

But that more dour productivity image certainly did not prevent it from getting a very happy $1 billion valuation yesterday, for what essentially is a business classified service with online presence and connection elements woven in.

And with $53 million in new funding, of course, it’s instantly a hot-ticket item!

As we reported earlier, the money will be used for acquisitions and corporate development, presumably to grow the service into a worldwide behemoth.

That is probably a good thing, as the LinkedIn IPO is further out, said Chairman Reid Hoffman, the serial entrepreneur who founded the company.

He noted to BoomTown in an interview that such an event was not “in the immediate future.”

In addition, that behemoth valuation does leave behind, for now, all the acquisition rumors that swirled around LinkedIn, which had interest from News Corp. (NWS) (owner of Dow Jones and this Web site too) and others.

Now, it is a small company with a very big price tag.

Thus, LinkedIn, which is profitable and had $100 million in revenues this year, is on its own with a nice new bag of cash to help it get along.

Here’s my interview with Nye from late last year:

In a much-expected financing, LinkedIn has joined the big funding club (Slide, Spot Runner) of late, by raising $53 million at a startling $1 billion valuation.

Why go public when you can just pretend?

Actually, unlike a lot of Web 2.0 start-ups, the professional networking site, which had 23 million active monthly members in June, has been profitable since 2006.

According to execs, it has revenues of about $100 million a year, from premium subscriptions and job listings, as well was advertising and corporate sales.

The new slug of cash comes from new investor Bain Capital Ventures, along with existing investors Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, and Bessemer Ventures.

LinkedIn had previously raised $27 million for a total of $80 million. Yipes!

“This additional funding will give us even more flexibility to execute on our vision for millions of professionals to increase their effectiveness by using LinkedIn to build relationships and exchange knowledge, opportunities and advice,” wrote LinkedIn CEO Dan Nye (pictured here) in a blog post tonight.

In an interview with LinkedIn’s founding CEO and Chairman Reid Hoffman (pictured here) today, he told BoomTown that the money raised would be used for corporate development and acquisitions.

“We’ll be doing small technology acquisitions to improve our service,” said Hoffman. He also noted that it was unlikely the company would be doing an IPO in the immediate future, which has been bandied about.

“We have no immediate plans” for a public offering, said Hoffman. “We still have a lot of ground to cover to grow.”

Comparing the the business-oriented LinkedIn professional network with hot social networks like Facebook, Hoffman noted: “They have page views and time on the site and are looking for a scalable economic model and we have an economic model and will focus on growing usage.”

LinkedIn certainly has been growing its coffers. It raised $5.2 million in its first round, $10 million in its second and $12.8 million in its third.

Here is a video of LinkedIn’s investors trying mightily to play down the $1 billion valuation, while also pumping it up.

You gotta love the cheerleading of Greylock’s David Sze, Bessemer’s David Cowan and Mark Kvamme of Sequoia, along with new investor Jeffrey Glass of Bain (who will join LinkedIn’s board as an observer):

The rumors have been a-flyin’ recently about the reported talks between LinkedIn and News Corp.

Billing itself as the “professional” social network, the serious cousin to the party-hearty twins of MySpace and Facebook, the LinkedIn service is squarely aimed at those with a task in mind from networking to recruiting to career advancement.

In many ways, it is trying to be a business classified service with online presence and connection elements woven in. LinkedIn execs, in fact, throw around the term, “productivity tool,” much in the same way Facebook likes to talk about the joys of “SuperPoking” (by the way, not so joyful to adults).

With 16 million users from all sorts of sectors and spread out globally, LinkedIn getting a look-see by News Corp. makes a lot of sense. It just bought Dow Jones (owner of this site) and its flagship business newspaper The Wall Street Journal, and owns many newspapers, all of which need an online answer to the diminishing print employment-classified business.

In any case, I talked to newly installed LinkedIn CEO Dan Nye recently (before the recent rumors) about the company:

(I still am having problems with the Brightcove player, so I uploaded the video to YouTube.)

Better still, LinkedIn–which was founded by serial entrepreneur Reid Hoffman–actually makes some money on its premium services and listings, with revenues of $10 million in 2006. Company execs predict that revenue will grow to $75 million to $100 million next year.

That’s pocket change to a giant like News Corp., of course, although figures floated for the deal top $1 billion–a lofty number whose floaters are probably its investors looking to cash in.

That might be too pricey for News Corp., whose efforts in the arena are apparently being led by Executive Vice President Jeremy Philips. It has also looked at similar companies like Germany’s Xing (before the News Corp. purchase, Dow Jones was also reportedly eyeing Xing) and other such sites.

In addition, Hoffman and others at LinkedIn have talked about an IPO.

That possibility and any acquisition remains to be seen. LinkedIn Nye, who took over from Hoffman recently (the founder remains the company’s chairman), seems pretty confident.

In a piece published yesterday, Nye told Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky that it would take “a helluva lot” to get LinkedIn off the independent path. Well, we’ll see what a helluva weighs, I guess.