Greylock Partners today announced its newest entrepreneur-in-residence, bringing longtime LinkedIn exec David Hahn onto the team. At the venture firm, Hahn will be focused on what’s happening in healthcare and education technology, with the long-term goal of entering one of those sectors.
With the move, Hahn joins LinkedIn co-founder and Executive Chairman Reid Hoffman at Greylock. Hahn spent nearly a decade at LinkedIn, first joining as a junior product manager in 2005 and working his way up to VP of Product over the years.
Along the way, he worked on a number of product initiatives, including some of the company’s early growth initiatives such as improving SEO around people’s names and streamlining its email invitation flows.
Then in 2009, Hahn began to focus almost entirely on monetization of the LinkedIn product as it scaled that part of the business. Since then, Hahn has overseen all of the products related to monetization, which accounts for more than $1.5 billion in revenue.
Over the past several years, many of Greylock’s EIRs have ended up either forming their own companies or joining the executive ranks of other major tech corporations. Meanwhile others have gone on to become partners at the firm.
Hahn told me in a phone interview that he decided to join Greylock because he believes the time is right for real innovation to take place in the healthcare and education sectors, and he wanted to explore the possibility of entering one of those fields with his own company.
“The EIR gig allows me to spend a majority of my time checking out these areas of interest, but without jumping in too quickly,” Hahn told me.
