This is the month of senior executives leaving the starts and big media and Internet companies: just yesterday the CEOs of Hearst and Hachette were circled out on the east coast. Meanwhile, on the west coast, Yahoo’s (NSDQ: YHOO) bleeding all over and now Facebook sees its VP of Product Management Matt Cohler, one of the earliest hires, leaving the company this fall. He will be joining Benchmark Capital as a partner, reports ATD. But he is not cutting off his ties with Fbook completely: he will continue as a “special advisor” to Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and to its senior management team. Is this Sheryl Sandberg cleaning house?

Benchmark has announced it officially: “In his new role, Mr. Cohler will identify investment opportunities in Internet-related services, in addition to working closely with companies across the firm’s portfolio.” The baby-face Cohler, 31, was previously VP and GM at LinkedIn, where he was a member of the company’s founding team.

WSJ: This comes as Facebook is trying to grow up: Sandberg, for instance, has been rolling out new management and operations procedures, such as guidelines for employee performance reviews, training programs and new recruiting processes. But the company has lost some key executives recently, including Adam D’Angelo, the company’s former chief technology officer, and Owen Van Natta, who served as chief revenue officer and chief operating officer

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