Google announced that Michael Moritz, a member of Google’s board of directors since May 1999, will not seek re-election.

Michael Moritz is a general partner of Sequoia Capital, before joining Sequoia in 1986 he worked at Time Warner and founded Technologic Partners.

“I’m delighted to have played a role in these achievements and, along with my partners at Sequoia, look forward to identifying and supporting new businesses, in partnership with Google and others,” said Moritz, in the Google announcement.

Moritz is said in the announcement to be stepping down in order to spend more time focused on work as a general partner in Sequoia Capital.

The Mike Moritz Guessing Game from Valleywag reports an anonymous tip that Moritz was given an ultimatum for his venture capital firm to drop work with a new search company in development. Writes Valleywag:

Apparently, they have something killer behind the scenes, and Eric Schmidt was concerned about the competition. Basically, Moritz was given the choice to divest from the other startup or leave, but the startup looked so promising that Moritz wouldn’t give it up.

Google will hold elections for its board of directors on May 10, 2007.

Related Topics: Google: Business Issues | Google: Employees | Google: General

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz