MySpace Execs, Including COO, Exit To Join Startup
Joining Kapur through the exit turnstile are Senior Vice President of Engineering Jim Benedetto and Senior vice President of Product Strategy Steve Pearman. MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe confirmed the changes in a MySpace memo posted to a number of news sites, including Gawker.
"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," said DeWolfe in the memo. "Most importantly, Amit, Jim and Steve depart as great friends of MySpace and of our senior executive team."
Among other projects, Kapur, who was named COO last year, oversaw the launches of both MySpace Music and MySpace India, and controlled global operations for MySpace.com, MySpace Music and MySpace Mobile.
Kapur, Benedetto and Pearman will remain on MySpace's board for the next few weeks to smooth the transition, according to the memo.
MySpace has lost significant market share in past year to Facebook, which first surpassed MySpace for worldwide social networking traffic back in May 2008.
But DeWolfe struck an optimistic tone in his memo, saying MySpace would continue to update existing advertising technologies like MyAds and HyperTargeting, and find new ways to leverage the music and video features of MySpace.
"Despite what the market tells us, 2009 will be a big year for our business," DeWolfe said.