Updated with more details
Quiet Facebook co-founder and chief technology officer Adam D’Angelo is leaving the company, one source tells me. D’Angelo announced the news internally this past Friday, the source says — and Facebook has just confirmed.
D’Angelo is one of Facebook’s original co-founders and one of founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg’s oldest friends at the company.
D’Angelo is leaving because he has been feeling tired and burnt-out, I hear. This is unsurprising considering Facebook’s booming growth –it now has more than 100 million monthly active users worldwide, according to comScore — and the many innovative products it has launched since it began in 2004.
He has been in the thick of it all with his current responsibilities including: leading the platform development and data teams, overseeing new product design and architecture, as well as its infrastructure expansion. The company has recently taken out a $100 million loan to finance infrastructure investments alone.
Zuckerberg and D’Angelo met in high school and developed a music discovery service called Synapse that garnered positive press and subsequently interest (but no purchase offers) from large companies looking to hire the young developers. Zuckerberg, as most readers know, went to on Harvard and started Facebook out of his dorm room. D’Angelo was one of the first people he tapped to join him.
In fact, according to this Harvard Crimson article, Zuckerberg moved the company from Boston to Palo Alto, Calif. in 2005 in part to be closer to D’Angelo, who was attending Caltech at the time.
The reason is that D’Angelo an alpha geek. As his Facebook executive bio states, in 2005 he was a top finalist in the Topcoder Collegiate Challenge, a timed test where contestants design and implement a complex software algorithm.
He’s also a repeat entrepreneur. While at Caltech, he developed an instant message service called BuddyZoo that let you upload your list of IM friends to its site, then analyze your friend data to see things like which IM buddies you and your friends have in common.
D’Angelo is well-liked at Facebook, though he has mostly stayed behind the scenes. His departure is doubtless a blow to the organization — and also an opportunity to bring in a seasoned replacement to handle the site’s continuing expansion.
Update: Kara Swisher of the newly-redesigned All Things D blog (who beat me to publishing this story by a few minutes) has more detail. “D’Angelo felt his responsibilities no longer fit well with his skills and interests,” according to a source. He says that he’ll remain “a strong and enthusiastic supporter” of the company” in a letter he sent to staffers, obtained by Swisher. Instead of a CTO, the company will have a VP of Engineering, although it’s not yet clear how D’Angelo’s responsibilities will be redistributed.
6:39 pm
Facebook Growing Up? CTO Adam D’Angelo Resigns said:
[...] word from VentureBeat, who has confirmed the news with Facebook, that one of Zuckberg’s last remaining peers and a high [...]
6:48 pm
Trouble at Facebook? CTO/ Co-Founder Leaving said:
[...] Facebook co-founder and CTO Adam D’Angelo is leaving Facebook, according to a report at VentureBeat. [...]
7:08 pm
TekROI » Lead Stories » Facebook losing its steam? said:
[...] VentureBeat and Kara Swisher are reporting that CTO Adam D’Angelo is leaving the company. Many people have talked about the high profile additions to Facebook recently, but this is the first high profile departure. It’s interesting that one of your closest friends, and more important cogs in your company would leave at this time. Is something up at Facebook, that we don;t know about? It could just be that he feels, he isn’t qualified to be the CTO of a large company, but it still is odd timing. If other execs start to jump ship, then something might really be wrong, but there are still questions that need to be asked. [...]
8:24 pm
Facebook CTO Jumps Ship - The Unofficial Facebook Blog said:
[...] out Eric Eldon’s post for his take on things. Posted in News Digg this article Save to del.icio.us [...]
9:17 pm
The Rising Cost of Facebook Infrastructure - GigaOM said:
[...] Facebook has built an enviable infrastructure. I personally believe that their desire to market Facebook Connect is a way to offload some of the pressures Facebook apps are placing on their system, but at some later stage. Regardless, one exec who is not going to be around to help architect the next phase of Facebook’s back end bulk-up: CTO Adam D’Angelo, who left the company according to Kara Swisher and Eric Eldon. [...]
10:44 pm
Webstop: Przystanek Web » Blog Archive » Czy Facebook szykuje się na giełdę? said:
[...] z twórców serwisu, Adam D’Angelo, ogłosił właśnie odejście z firmy. Adam, jako CTO Facebooka, odpowiedzialny był za całą techniczną stronę przedsięwzięcia od [...]
11:45 pm
Facebook’s CTO D’Angelo to Leave | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD said:
[...] very talented Eric Eldon at VentureBeat also had the story on D’Angelo’s departure with some more details about the young [...]
12:33 am
Anonymous said:
[...] [via] Tags: adam d angelo, cto, facebook, Internet, pestaola Σχετικά posts:
5:59 am
Pilgrim’s Picks for May 12 said:
[...] Facebook is welcoming Google employees through the front door, its own CTO and co-founder Adam D’Angelo is burnt-out and leaving the company via the back [...]
8:16 am
Facebook CTO changes employment status on Facebook profile - CIO Symmetry: A proportional mix of news and wit for the midmarket said:
[...] news broke last night, courtesy of blogs BoomTown and VentureBeat. Seems there are plenty of reasons for Adam D’Angelo to leave (or was he canned?). Let’s list [...]
8:38 am
Cofundador de Facebook “se fastidia y se va” - Julio C. Retamal Rojas said:
[...] “D’Angelo es muy apreciado en Facebook, aunque ha preferido quedarse detrás de cámara. Su partida es sin duda un golpe duro para la organización, y también una oportunidad para encontrar un reemplazo experimentado para la continuada expansión del sitio”, escribió Eric Eldon en el blog VentureBeat. [...]
9:52 am
» Cofundador de Facebook se molestó y se fué GiraEnLaRed.info: said:
[...] “D’Angelo es muy apreciado en Facebook, aunque ha preferido quedarse detrás de cámara. Su partida es sin duda un golpe duro para la organización, y también una oportunidad para encontrar un reemplazo experimentado para la continuada expansión del sitio”, escribió Eric Eldon en el blog VentureBeat. [...]
6:03 pm
光阴故事 » Blog Archive » Facebook 首席技术官 Adam D’Angelo 将离职 said:
[...] 据消息人士透露， Adam D’Angelo 之所以萌生去意，是因为他认为自己的技能和兴趣已不适合目前的工作。 Adam D’Angelo 在信中表示，他仍将是 Facebook 的忠实的热心的支持者。 [...]
11:12 pm
Pilgrim’s Picks for May 12 | Advertising Blog said:
[...] Facebook is welcoming Google employees through the front door, its own CTO and co-founder Adam D’Angelo is burnt-out and leaving the company via the back [...]
1:07 am
Facebook Growing Up? CTO Adam D’Angelo is Leaving | Social Media News Desk said:
[...] word from VentureBeat, who has confirmed the news with Facebook, that one of Zuckerberg’s last remaining peers and a [...]
6:47 pm
The Importance of Experience - Profy.Com said:
[...] housing stipend has been scuttled, and CTO (and Zuckerberg friend) left the company "to take some time off." Rumors persisted during his recent trip around the world that he was traveling to avoid [...]
10:52 am
Facebook’s Matt Cohler leaves for Benchmark Capital » VentureBeat said:
[...] announcement follows the departure of Facebook co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Adam D’Angelo last month. It’s not completely clear why Cohler is leaving; in the press release, he cites [...]
11:20 am
Facebook Loses Another Exec - Matt Cohler Joins Benchmark said:
[...] Natta wanted a CEO role at a different startup). And CTO Adam D’Angelo left the company in May. Meanwhile, Facebook as been picking up ex-Google execs left and right to fill out additional roles [...]
12:54 pm
TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » Facebookからまた幹部辞任。Matt CohlerがBenchmarkに転職 said:
[...] Facebookの家の大掃除は続いている。- 最高売上責任者（Chief Revenue Officer）兼業務部VPのOwen Van Nattaも今年はじめ社内権力抗争が噂される最中に同社を去った（正式にはVan Nattaが別のスタートアップのCEOに就任を希望したのが理由ということになっている）。CTOのAdam D’Angeloも5月に辞めた。 [...]
4:15 pm
Another key early Facebook employee, Jeff Hammerbacher, is leaving the company » VentureBeat said:
[...] early and crucial employees who have left include former chief technology officer, Adam D’Angelo, and former all-purpose business and product leader Matt Cohler, both of whom were, like [...]
3:33 pm
Facebook’s executive musical chairs: Ex-Googler Elliot Schrage to manage its developer platform » VentureBeat said:
[...] month-to-month reshuffling of executives and their responsibilities have recently included the departure of founding chief technology officer Adam D’Angelo, founding all-purpose business and product guy Matt Cohler, and yesterday, data analytics team [...]