In an unusual appointment for the longtime public servant, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers will join Silicon Valley venture powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz as a part-time “Special Advisor.”

Summers got to know the firm with an assist from Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who was a student of his when he was a professor at Harvard University.

Summers was later president of Harvard, as well as director of the White House National Economic Council in the Obama administration until late last year.

“I am doing this because I feel technology in general and information technology in particular is now having a real pervasive macroeconomic impact in our time,” said Summers in a phone interview this afternoon from his home in Boston. “Long after people have lost their memory of the dramatic financial crisis in recent years, they will remember what technology has done to transform our economy in these same years.”

Summers said he increasingly wanted to become closer to this important trend and thought he could contribute to the innovation in Silicon Valley by helping its portfolio companies better understand the global economy.

He was introduced to Andreessen Horowitz at first by Sandberg, who was also Summers’ chief of staff while at the Treasury Department, and was attracted to its investment philosophy.

“They have distinctive elements of strategy that seemed to be a good fit, such as their emphasis on market disruption,” said Summers. “They also have an audacity of the vision and were really supporting transformation.”

Summers said he would serve as an advisor to Andreessen Horowitz companies, focusing on global opportunities they should take advantage of.

He will not become a VC, though. “My life to date has been as a professor and public servant, so I am not in a position to be a major investor,” said Summers.

That said, Marc Andreessen quickly noted in the interview that “if Larry brings in a company, we are going to take a serious look at it.”

While he was not a partner, Andreessen said Summers’ compensation would be linked to the long-term performance of the firm.

Summers will travel between Massachusetts and the West coast, but will also continue to work on outside projects.

What he will not be doing is giving any long-winded economic lessons to entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.

“I am not sure there is the attention span for some of my lectures out there,” he joked.

Here is Andreessen’s blog post about the Summers appointment:

Meet Larry Summers, Our New Special Advisor

By Marc Andreessen

Today I’m delighted to announce that economist and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers is joining our team as a part-time Special Advisor.

A lot of people already know who Larry is, but here are the highlights of a remarkable career to date:

* Admitted to MIT at age 16, originally to study physics — clearly our kind of nerd.

* Became tenured professor of economics at Harvard at age 28, where he first started mentoring a young undergraduate named Sheryl Sandberg, who ultimately became his chief of staff at the US Treasury.

* Received John Bates Clark Medal for his research at age 38, one of the two most prestigious awards in the field of economics (the other is the Nobel).

* On the staff of President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors in 1982-1983. (For those of you too young to remember, Reagan was a noted Republican.)

* Undersecretary for International Affairs and then Deputy Treasury Secretary for President Clinton between 1993 and 1999. Intimately involved in resolving major macroeconomic crises in Mexico, Russia, and elsewhere. Became US Treasury Secretary in 1999.

* President of Harvard from 2001 to 2006.

* Until late 2010, served as President Obama’s director of the White House National Economic Council.

* And, most importantly, a pivotal character in the recent movie “The Social Network”.

Larry will be an advisor to our firm and our entrepreneurs on several topics:

First, as technology continues its relentless colonization of broad swaths of the global economy, Larry will help us understand the scope and nature of the opportunities in front of us and our industry.

Second, many of our companies are seeking to restructure and revolutionize various markets — such as telecommunications, advertising, entertainment, education, health care, and financial services — and Larry will help us and our entrepreneurs analyze and understand the economics and dynamics of those markets.

Third, Larry’s deep insight into global economics and geopolitics will be highly useful to our companies that intend to expand globally — which is to say, all of them.

According to the New York Times, “Years ago, Henry Kissinger suggested that Mr. Summers be given a White House post in which he was charged with shooting down or fixing bad ideas.” We can’t arrange that, but we are excited to have him on our team, both to do that and to contribute lots of new ideas to us and to our companies.

But unlike the Treasury Department’s interest in improving access to public markets–-which has led former National Venture Capital Association Chairwoman Kate Mitchell to form a task force to develop recommendations–-the SEC initiative could make staying private more compelling, which is not something the venture industry wants.

NVCA President Mark Heesen reacted coolly to the SEC’s plans, outlined in an April 6 letter from SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro to U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R, Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Schapiro said the SEC is reviewing the ban on general solicitation of private offerings and the number of shareholders, currently 500, that trigger public reporting, among other issues.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Both Google (GOOG) and Facebook just sent out an internal memo about the move this morning.

UPDATE: Facebook, as well as Google, just confirmed that Fischer (pictured here) is joining the company.

Said Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg:

“It’s a testament to Facebook’s expanding opportunities in advertising that we’re able to welcome an executive of David’s caliber. I have worked closely with David over the years and witnessed his passion, energy, and effectiveness at building teams on a global scale. David’s arrival deepens our operational capabilities so we can build upon our ability to serve advertisers, regardless of size or location, that are building their brands on Facebook.”

Said Google in a short statement: “We thank David for his many contributions to Google and wish him the best of luck in the future.”

But the search giant cannot be happy, as the move by Fischer is yet another in a series of top execs at the search giant to defect to the fast-growing social networking site.

And it will surely raise tensions between Google and Facebook, which are increasingly becoming rivals in several major Internet arenas, and opposing poles of power in Silicon Valley.

Fischer has a strong and longtime business relationship with Sandberg.

He was Sandberg’s top deputy when she ran the core self-serve ad business at Google and took over her job when she left for Facebook two years ago. The pair also worked together at the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C., in the Clinton administration.

It is clear that Fischer, said sources with knowledge of the situation, is being brought in to strengthen leadership in ad ops and help scale that business.

The appointment of the experienced exec also frees Sandberg and others to focus on nonadvertising issues, such as Facebook’s inevitable journey to an IPO in 2011 or 2012.

The affable Fischer, 37, has been at Google since 2002 and rose through its ranks quickly.

Said the Google Web site about Fischer, in part:

David Fischer is responsible for Google’s online sales channel, which represents the majority of the company’s customers worldwide. David has provided leadership for the online sales and operations program since its inception in early 2002 and has helped build Google’s online advertising network into the largest in the world. He also runs the online sales channel of the AdSense publisher program, which enables website owners worldwide to earn revenue through partnerships with Google.

David manages operations for Google’s consumer products worldwide and runs Google’s Book Search scanning operations, working with libraries and publishers around the world to digitally scan books from their collections. In addition, he leads the Google Grants program, which has donated more than $300 million advertising dollars to thousands of nonprofits around the world. David has opened many offices for Google, including its sales centers in Hyderabad and Gurgaon, India as well as Ann Arbor, Michigan and Boston, Massachusetts.

But Fischer left that job last fall, taking a sabbatical.

He returned to Google in January and has been working on the company’s efforts to expand its local advertising and commerce business.

In a statement, Fischer said of his new job:

“Facebook is not just driving a shift in how people connect with one another, but in how advertisers engage and interact with their customers. I’m eager to help accelerate this shift by working with customers, scaling operations globally, and collaborating with the product and engineering teams to continue to evolve Facebook’s advertising business. Google is an incredible company and I will miss the many friends I made during my time with the company. Facebook has assembled a highly impressive collection of talent, and I’m thrilled to be part of the team.”

At Facebook, Fischer will not lack for former Google execs to reminisce with.

As well as Sandberg, some of the many include: Elliot Schrage, who is VP of Global Communications, Marketing and Public Policy; Grady Burnett, who heads its online and inside sales; Don Faul, director of global online operations; and Ethan Beard, director of the Facebook Developer Network.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.