Phil Libin moves to VC firm General Catalyst, two months after stepping down as CEO of Evernote
Evernote Founder Phil Libin Moves Into Venture Capital — Phil Libin, the co-founder of digital note-taking service Evernote Inc., is moving into venture capital two months after he stepped down as chief executive of the startup.
Context & Ripple Effects
The move closes out a transition that began in June, when Libin was reported to be planning his step-down and searching for a successor, and accelerated when Evernote hired ex-Google Glass executive Chris O'Neill as CEO with Libin shifting to executive chairman (the July announcement). Two months later he has left operations entirely for General Catalyst.
It matters because it is the first domino in an unusually fast leadership unwind: within months of the CEO change, COO Linda Kozlowski and founding CTO Dave Engberg also exited, meaning nearly the entire founding-era leadership left inside a year while the company was still searching for its post-founder identity.
First-order effects
- Evernote now runs without any of its founding leadership in day-to-day roles — O'Neill holds the CEO seat alone while Libin keeps only the chairman title and turns his attention to investing.
Second-order effects
- The departure cascade continues: Kozlowski exits as COO just months after joining, and founding CTO Engberg's planned May departure forces O'Neill to install entirely new heads of product, marketing, brand, design and China.
Third-order effects
- The founder-to-investor lane proves durable rather than terminal for Libin — six years on he is back as an operator-founder whose video startup Mmhmm raises $100M led by SoftBank's Vision Fund, suggesting VC stints can double as staging grounds for the next company rather than retirements from building.
The trend: Maturing consumer-software startups are normalizing the founder handoff to professional CEOs, with departing founders cycling into venture capital as both a landing spot and a launchpad for their next ventures.