A whirlwind of rumours surrounding Xing late last week implied that the talented Lars Hinrichs, co-founder and long-time CEO of LinkedIn competitor Xing, was poised to resign. Twitter was alight with the chatter but when I emailed Xing for comment, spokesman Thorsten Vespermann came out with a blog post and statement which seemed to suggest all was well.
“There are currently some rumors in some German media and they are more or less based on a news from the News agency dpa-afx. After we realized this we called them and asked for an update and this is the result (sorry, I didn’t find any English translation from them..)”
He basically said that because Xing is a listed company it couldn’t comment, but they did deny the DPA-AFX story that Hinrichs was off.
However, today we have confirmation that Dr Stefan Gross-Selbeck, former head of eBay Germany, will succeed Lars Hinrichs as chief executive. Hinrichs will join Xing’s Supervisory Board, after five years at the helm, effective January 15, 2009.
Although a co-founding CEO normally leaves the firm only if it has sold, the fact that Xing floated a while back means Hinrichs will have realised an exit of sorts.
He blogs today that: ” I’ve decided to dedicate more of my time outside of my commitment to XING to new entrepreneurial challenges.”
Why is Dr Stefan Gross-Selbeck a drone? Maybe he’s a very lively and interesting person.
Nice work Mike. The fact that a replacement is already announced suggests this has been in the offing for some time and that DPA-AFX latched on early.
Although he may well have “an exit of sorts” Xing still has a lot to do to create a truly dominant position in Europe or realise a position in Asia. It is also under-represented in the US, where it could be offering strong opposition to LinkedIn. I would suggest Hinrichs’ work is far from done.
So what else can we read into this…?
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
this is a real surprise Lars’ work is far from finished after just 5 years, I’ve been doing Ecademy for 11 years in 2009 and I know the job is never finished. Social Networks do not have an end they are permanent live R&D.
And pray tell has Dr Stefan Gross-Selbeck done to deserve the “drone” moniker?
Ebay is no longer a startup, it’s an established business with, as it happens, a tonne of problems and challenges, not least of which what to do with Skype. Actually, I’m sure Gross-Selbeck is a great guy – but eBay does tend to pick’em… But that’s the beauty of comments, right? Now I know he has people out there who think he ain’t a drone…
Jeez Mike, don’t think you’ll be getting many Christmas cards from Germany or 2145 Hamilton Avenue….
@liam – I’ll live.
Isn’t a drone an unmanned aircraft in the Pakistan/Afghanistan border area?
Not sure that’s entirely fair on Stefan, not long ago Germany (remember Alando?) was eBay’s most successful market but I guess you get tarred with the corporate giant / slowdown brush pretty quick these days.
Also a bit of an eats shoots and leaves problem, is he no longer a drone having now left the hive? Or does his drone-ness remain? Either way it’s seems a bit harsh to slam the guy in the title, especially as the body points out that xing is now a public entity, thus making a corporate hire a somewhat sensible move.
Also, Mike’s comment that it has a lot problems seems pretty tangential, what has skype got to do with Stefan’s droneyness?
Ah well there goes the interview with the new CEO huh. Hey ho.