No more speculation or leaks, it’s official. As we wrote yesterday, MySpace cofounder Chris DeWolfe will shortly be leaving the company. He’ll remain on board as a strategic advisor. The press release is below.
News Corp. is also signaling that cofounder Tom Anderson is staying on board, albeit in a new role – even last night we heard that he was a goner.
Whoever the new CEO is, we’ll know soon. News Corp. PR is leaking to their subsidiary press outlets that Owen Van Natta is the prime candidate, but at least a couple of other people are still supposedly in the running. If Van Natta, a former Facebook exec, takes over, the investors that backed him at Playlist are going to want an explanation. He took over the CEO role there less than six months ago.
Chris DeWolfe to Step Down as CEO of MySpace
Will serve as strategic advisor to Company
Los Angeles, CA, April 22, 2009 – MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe and News Corporation’s Chief Digital Officer Jonathan Miller, announced today that, by mutual agreement, Mr. DeWolfe will not be renewing his contract and will be stepping down in the near future. Mr. DeWolfe will continue to serve on the board of MySpace China and will be a strategic advisor to the Company.
Additionally, Mr. Miller announced that he was in discussions with Tom Anderson, MySpace’s president, about Mr. Anderson assuming a new role in the organization.
“Chris and Tom are true pioneers and we greatly value the tremendous job they’ve done in growing MySpace into what it is today,” said Mr. Miller. “Thanks largely to their vision, MySpace has become a vibrant creative community with 130 million passionate followers worldwide. It is an enormously successful property and we look forward to building on its achievements with a new management structure we’ll announce in the near future.”
“In a little under six years we’ve grown MySpace from a small operation with seven people to a very profitable business with over 1,600 employees,” said Mr. DeWolfe. “It’s been one of the best experiences of my life and we’re proud of, and grateful to, the team of talented people who helped us along the way. We thank them, as well as the MySpace community for making our vision a reality.”
“From the very beginning, our driving passion has been simple – to create and foster a platform where people across the globe can not only meet and interact, but share music, videos, thoughts and ideas,” said Mr. Anderson. I look forward to working with Jon. I love this business, and look forward to its next chapter.”
It seems like Jason C was setting himself up to be the next guy. It would be a very sad thing if Mahalo was purchased in this deal.
That actually wouldn’t surprise me, because Mahalo might be the “search engine” that he describes in the email. It seems plausible…
Anik, Sad yes, surprise no. But that is exactly what I felt. EVERYTHING in his email screamed “Buy Mahalo”
Why would it be sad though?
because it isn’t worth anything. And for a product like that to be called a “success” (thus far in it’s progress) would be a crime.
Where is the twitter article on how they can’t write photo upload code properly. Still can’t change profile pics.
What is Twitter? Sounds like an STD I picked up last night at the local bar.
is this a TC reader SERIOUSLY asking what is twitter?! AND using the same old “disease” joke that got beaten to death with Yahoo, Google, etc.
Who is the bigger fool? The fool who tries to write a funny(-ish) comment or the fool who comments on the fool?
Thank God Tom is staying!
New title: Vice President of Fun and People
you put it so nicely. that dude was gonna get fired.
As a fan of Project Playlist, I’d be interested in seeing what Owen could do with MySpace. He has my support.
Since he did completely zero at Playlist, maybe he’d be a good fit for MySpace.
I think it is a little silly that no one is mentioning the fact that Chris has an obvious drug habit. He is running around town high as a kite sometimes and is not fit to run company anymore.
i am totally applying for this ceo job. i love social utility pages like most and twitter too.
Here’s the internal email:
To FIM Employees:
I am writing to share the news that MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe will be stepping down from his executive role in the near future. He has agreed to serve as a strategic advisor to the Company and will remain on the board of MySpace China.
In addition, I am currently in discussions with MySpace President Tom Anderson regarding his role within the organization.
I want to take this opportunity to thank them both for their incredible contributions to the Company, and for pioneering one of the greatest social media revolutions of our time. I wish Chris nothing but the best in any new endeavors and, like many in this industry, am eager to witness his next innovations.
I understand the importance of having a dynamic, inspiring and innovative management team, and am dedicated to ensuring that MySpace continues to benefit from the highest levels of passion and enthusiasm.
I also want to thank everyone across FIM for giving me the opportunity to work with all of you. With MySpace, IGN, Photobucket, Fox Audience Network and our Digital Publishing Group, this is an exciting collective of properties and I’m enthusiastic about the opportunities that lie ahead.
I hope to meet and work closely with many of you over the weeks and months to come.
Best regards,
Jonathan Miller
“i love this business” ………..sounds like tom will be getting the promotion. it will be exciting to see what kinda site chris comes back with. does C have the midas touch or was myspac just a bolt of lightning.
2 things:
(1) thank god Jon Miller didn’t call Dewolfe the founder of MySpace. It’s about time for that myth to be dispelled.
(2) Thank god calacanis didn’t get the job and thank god his crappy site isn’t getting bought. It’s terrible and he needs to suffer for being sooooo bad!
Then who is the founder of myspace?
Al Gore…
no doubt lol
Chuck Norris! Chuck Norris! Chuck Norris!
Was the taco truck there to bid him farewell????
Can Tom be fired from Myspace?
Who becomes Tom (your first friend) if Tom is fired?
That to me is an interesting question. Thoughts anyone? Is he in a position where he can not be fired due to his avatar?
Will Murdoch be your new best friend?
Suggestions anyone?
Constantine from Music.us
If they know what is smart, they won’t fire Tom Anderson. He is the face of MySpace. I’ve had my account since before he sold it to Fox. All of the friends that I have acquired on MySpace also love Tom.
Tom Anderson is not just an avatar. He built and founded MySpace. He is a hard working and quality individual from what I have seen and read. I have seen posts from people who work with him, and most have nothing bad to say of Tom.
I can tell you with confidence, that if Tom goes, I will, too. I will encourage my “friends” to do the same. MySpace will see a drop in users. And that drop will eventually sink the company. After all, you wouldn’t take Ellen or Oprah off their shows. You wouldn’t take a main characters actor out of a squeal and replace them with a new one. Why? Cause of the fans. You can’t change things like that. We are the fans and users of MySpace, Fox needs to think about what we want. Tom Anderson’s being fired is not one of them.
Hmmmm. Maybe they’ll change their strategy and take off all advertising from their sites and start giving away free soap for every new member. On the other hand, Facebook has cruised by Myspace a little bit ago so they’ve got to change something to keep growing. I’ve been hearing mostly complaints for the past year.
Tom is the sh*t! FIM is RETARDED to think that mostly ALL of the tastemakers that WE brought to the site are going to stay if Tom and Chris are gone! Bureaucracy is at it’s finest here…Tom and Chris are the only reason why MySpace has done so well after the acquisition…..if you left it up to FIM – who had ZERO internet strategy of their own, MySpace would have folded to even a Hi5 years ago. The ONLY reason why Tom is even considering staying after all of this, is because this is his baby….he doesn’t want some machine to ruin it – this is a part of him. I was at MySpace from 2003 – a few months ago, and all of these people that work at MySpace that are dissing Tom are probably a bit green….new to this game. If your ideas are so great, why didn’t you build something like this yourself before you came to work at MySpace really excited to work for Tom. Oh, and Brad Greenspan is a piece of work….just look at his sites LiveVideo and etc….they are all overwhelming clusterf*cks – good luck Brad ‘founder of myspace, freemyspace, and imparanoidcokehead.com’ Wooo! Tedskillz:)