Liz Gannes

Recent Posts by Liz Gannes

Badoo COO Ben Ling Leaves — Will the Former Googler Now Reunite With Marissa Mayer at Yahoo?

Ben Ling, the high-profile tech exec who joined the large social discovery start-up Badoo as chief operating officer in May, has left the social discovery company and will be an adviser in Silicon Valley for it.

It’s not clear what prompted the sudden shift.

Before Badoo, Ling had been a longtime product exec at Google, working on search and local products, with stints at YouTube for a short while, too. Ling has also worked at Facebook, but left there after clashes with top management.

Professionally, he is closely linked with former Googler Marissa Mayer, whom he followed internally when her responsibilities shifted there. Mayer, of course, is now CEO of Yahoo, so he’s an obvious candidate for a product job there.

Ling did not respond to requests for comment; Badoo provided a statement: “Ben Ling is moving to a new role as senior adviser to the board and founders at Badoo. He’ll be based out of the Bay Area, and will continue to work on strategic initiatives for the company as it continues its rapid international growth.”

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I think the NSA has a job to do and we need the NSA. But as (physicist) Robert Oppenheimer said, “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and argue about what to do about it only after you’ve had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.”

— Phil Zimmerman, PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder, in an interview with Om Malik