Top MySpace execs start leaving in droves

When the going gets tough, sometimes the tough just move on to greener pastures. And so it is with three top MySpace executives that are leaving to found a new startup led by outgoing COO Amit Kapur.

Also joining Kapur are MySpace SVP of Technology, Jim Benedetto and SVP of Product Strategy Steve Pearman. The three announced their plans to take some time off before launching a new company.

Last year didn’t end so well for MySpace. The company is still growing, but risks being dwarfed by Facebook’s massive global growth during the year.

For the last five years or so, MySpace has pioneered social networking while remaining the single undisputed leader in the space. Now Facebook has surpassed MySpace in overall traffic at the end of last year and is poised to take the lead as the top social networking site in the US later this year.

While Kapur and company didn’t cite MySpace’s loss of momentum as a reason for leaving the company they built, it’s fair to assume that it’s one of the factors at play in their decision. If the site’s fall from grace as the top social networking site isn’t enough, the fact that these executives have no equity in their company might be enough.

The truly smart executives will always leave before the fall, as Michael Arrington says. He cites the exodus of talent from Yahoo in 2007 and 2008 as an example of this principle.

Besides, product development at MySpace is starting to drag. With the company playing catch-up to Facebook in terms of features, MySpace hasn’t been able to launch anything groundbreaking in some time.

Here is the internal memo from CEO Chris DeWolfe courtesy of Techcrunch:

From: Chris Dewolfe
Sent: Tuesday, March 03
To: FIM MySpace All
Subject: IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM CHRIS DEWOLFE

Hi everyone,

I want to notify you of some changes occurring to the senior executive team at MySpace.

Amit Kapur, our Chief Operating Officer, will be leaving the company to start a new venture. Many of us who have been lucky enough to work with Amit can attest to his tenacity, passion, and creativity as a leader within MySpace and the larger industry.

Jim Benedetto, SVP of Engineering and Steve Pearman, SVP of Product Strategy will join Amit in this new chapter. Personally, I’m incredibly excited to see what this team creates together and wish them the best of luck as they transition from helping run a company to building a new one. Most importantly, Amit, Jim, and Steve depart as great friends of MySpace and of our senior executive team. They will remain on board for the next few weeks to ensure a smooth transition company-wide.

We recently celebrated the five year anniversary of the launch of MySpace—it’s a major milestone and everyone should be extremely proud of the global business that we have created in such a short amount of time. At its inception, MySpace was a product of the new social Web and in the last few years we’ve developed the most robust and diverse business in the marketplace.

MySpace is a social portal that empowers its global community to interact with people, content, and culture by giving individuals a personal, portable, and secure social experience. Originally, Yahoo gave consumers an organized way of navigating the Internet. Then, Google made searching the Internet extremely easy. Now, MySpace is making it simple for users to organize what’s important to them through a personal and social lens.

Despite what the market tells us, 2009 will be a big year for our business. This year we will mature our existing market leading advertising technologies such as MyAds and HyperTargeting, as well as continue to innovate new ways for companies big and small to best leverage the MySpace platform. We are effectively monetizing the stickiest sections of our site such as Music and Video by coupling the world’s richest content offering with creative ad programming online and off. What will always differentiate MySpace from others in the industry is our commitment to balancing revenue and relevancy.

On the product side, this past year was full of innovation including a site-wide global redesign, the impressive growth of our mobile initiatives, and the beginnings of our Open Platform product suite including MySpaceID. We’re at the tip of the iceberg with the Open Platform and in the coming year we expect major new launches including payments and virtual goods. Also in 2009, MySpace Music will deliver the next round of product development such its international rollout, and new functionality including charts, ticketing, and merchandise. Most important, we will remain committed to executing on our product vision in a manner that engages our users in the process and considers their feedback every step of the way.

Tom and I want to reiterate how passionate we are about MySpace—we love the people, the product, and we believe in the future of the company. MySpace has a dedicated team of senior executives and I’d like to take the opportunity to spotlight some of these individuals. I encourage everyone to get to know our executive team as they are an enormously capable group of professionals from successful media and Internet powerhouses such as eBay, Yahoo!, MTV, and Symantec that will lead our company into its next phase.

MySpace Executive Team:

· Tom Anderson—President and Co-Founder

· Aber Whitcomb—Chief Technology Officer

· Travis Katz—GM and SVP of MySpace International

· Courtney Holt—President of MySpace Music

· Jeff Berman—President of Sales and Marketing

· Lin Cherry—General Counsel

· Tom Andrus—SVP of Product

· Manu Thapar—SVP of Engineering Operations

· Allen Hurff—SVP of Engineering

· Tish Whitcraft—SVP of Customer Care

· Jason Oberfest—SVP of Business Development

· Angela Courtin—SVP of Marketing

· Abe Thomas—VP of Online Marketing

· Dani Dudeck—VP of Global Corporate Communications

In a tough economy, we’re continuing to prove to the industry that we’re a serious business defining a new social portal category for a Web that’s more personal, portable, and collaborative than ever before. Thanks everyone for a record breaking year 2008—the coming year will be even more important for the company and our 130 million global users worldwide.

Best,

Chris

Related Posts:

• Myspace to launch developer platform February 5th
• MySpace’s parade of new execs follows deep employee cuts
• MySpace, Skype to partner for new voice call offering
• MySpace Tom looks to be no more, how long until MySpace itself follows him?
• CEO Chris DeWolfe out at MySpace