Venture Capitalist Jim Breyer Is Leaving Dell, Facebook, Walmart

Accel Partners

Legendary Silicon Valley VC Jim Breyer is leaving a whole bunch of big-name boards: He's not standing for re-election at Dell, Walmart and Facebook, according to SEC filings.

It's interesting that he's leaving all three at once. These are the boards that he's most famous for.

UPDATED: He's leaving to dedicate more time to working with startups, and because he's been on each board for a long time and was ready to move on, a source close to Breyer told us. He also wants time for his newest board, Harvard University, reports TechCrunch's Josh Constine.

Forbes' Tomio Geron first spotted the news, noting that Breyer really helped catapult his venture firm, Accel Patners, into star status with his investment in Facebook. In 2005, after meeting Mark Zuckerberg, Breyer invested $12 million, gaining an 11% stake, Geron reports. Breyer has been on Facebook's board ever since.

He's been on Walmart's board since 2001, helping the retail giant establish its ecommerce site. He invested in Walmart.com, which began as a venture-backed company and was later bought by Walmart.

Dropping from Dell makes the most sense. He joined Dell more recently, in 2009, and was the head of the Finance committee. Michael Dell is now in the process of taking his company private.

Breyer is still on plenty of boards, like Etsy and News Corp, which he joined in 2011.