Hot Topics: LinkedIn IPO Makes Co-Founder an Almost-Billionaire

It was 1999 all over again Thursday when LinkedIn, the business networking site that Reid Hoffman helped start in his living room eight years ago, launched its initial public stock offering and saw the value of its shares more than double by the closing bell.

The take for Hoffman, 42, the company's chairman: $853 million, according to The Wall Street Journal. That's not bad for a guy who now only works at LinkedIn part time.

These days, the former Apple and eBay exec spends his days investing in other startups as a venture capitalist at Greylock Partners. In a 2009 interview with the Journal, Hoffman attributed LinkedIn's success to the fact that people have discovered that the internet can help their careers.

"One of my theses is that every individual is now a small business," he says. "How you manage your own personal career is the exact way you manage a small business. Your brand matters. That is how LinkedIn operates."

Boomer Summit in Oklahoma: Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett is organizing a boomer summit this fall to make sure Oklahoma's second-largest city is ready for its aging population. The conference, called "Across Generations -- What We Owe Each Other," will get help from the Legacy Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that promotes cross-generational education. "I'm 64, even though I sometimes feel like I'm 26," Bartlett says. "But eventually, reality will hit all of us. It's going to happen, and we need to be prepared for getting older, as individuals and as a community."

Midlife Story Project: Do you have a midlife transition story to tell? If so, SheWrites.com wants to hear it. Inspired by The Big Shift, Marc Freedman's book on the new life stage beyond middle age, the online writing community for women (and men), is partnering with Freedman's Encore.org group to ask people over 40 to submit stories. "Tell your encore story so that somebody reading it has his or her 'aha!' moment," says SheWrites founder Kamy Wicoff. To participate, send submissions of 250 words or fewer to Encore.org by May 26. You can read some stories already on SheWrites.com's What's Your Encore Story? page.

Help a Nonprofit Win $50K: Today is the last day to help one of six nonprofits win $50,000 in GOOD's Reinventing the Outdoors contest. GOOD signed up celebrities to help promote the contenders, including actor Ed Norton, who's championing the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust, and pro surfer Laird Hamilton, who's backing the Surfrider Foundation. Check out videos of each project and vote on GOOD's Vote and Help One Nonprofit Win page.

Hotel Deals for Summer: If you haven't planned a getaway yet, this could help. Sunset Magazine just published its guide to the best hotel deals in the west, and there's something for everyone. The Top 50 Hotels under $150 list includes exotic destinations such as the West Beach Resort, on the west end of Orcas Island in Washington state's San Juan Islands, where you can rent one of 21 pine cabins ($140, two-night minimum). On the more mundane side, there's the original Motel 6 in Santa Barbara, with "tiny" rooms but a great location a half-block from the beach ($136).

The Economics of the Schwarzenegger-Shriver Split: Details of the increasingly messy Arnold Schwarzenegger-Maria Shriver split are coming to light, with most attention going to the former governor's admission that he fathered a child with the couple's former housekeeper more than a decade ago. Almost lost in the shuffle are the financial implications of their breakup. But the consequences are anything but incidental. CBSMoneyWatch.com's Jill Schlesinger estimates that the couple's net worth is anywhere from $200 million to $400 million. Because California is a community property state, where assets co-mingled in a joint account are considered joint property, a lot hinges on whether the couple had a pre-nuptial agreement. "But if Maria and Arnold had entered into a pre-nuptial agreement prior to their marriage, the split of assets may have already been determined, which would certainly make the financial part of the process easier," Schlesinger says.

Last Word: "Beware of emerald fields viewed from afar. The mirage dissipates only after you've made the journey, and you find yourself with the very same body and the very same mind asking the very same questions just with a different mailing address." -- Massachusetts writer Rachel Vidoni in her essay, "The Middle Place," at More.com.