They're both new to the neighborhood, and they hate each other. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and former deputy Owen Van Natta are apparently moving into the same opulent corner of Palo Alto, California. But Van Natta scored the posher pad.
The struggle for MySpace's future pitted East against West and North against South. Silicon Valley lost; Los Angeles and New York won. And all fired CEO Owen Van Natta could do was smile, shrug and crack open some cold ones.
Internet superhunk and MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta quit right as he was on the cusp of becoming one of our generation's great social networking anti-heroes. He's leaving MySpace just 10 months after taking the job. Update: He was fired.
MySpace now says it is no longer competing with Facebook, the rival social network with far more users. No, now MySpace will focus on the niche of music and digital entertainment. And compete with Apple and Google.
MySpace's CEO purportedly keeps his body pretty tight. But he should lay off the weight obsession at work. Owen Van Natta said MySpace was "bloated" when he laid off 400 workers; now they're reportedly called "fat" to their faces.
Two months after taking over as CEO, Owen Van Natta is laying off 30 percent of MySpace employees. His outlook remains bleak; when was the last time you heard a CEO call his company "bloated" in a press release?
MySpace chief Own Van Natta is a consummate dealmaker; at Facebook he helped sweet talk Microsoft into a critical ad buy. MySpace is a trickier case: insiders at the social network are spreading word it faces "horrendous" user disengagement.
Dear Ryan:
As I head to NBC to run its Bay Area site, I'm leaving you one Silicon Valley gossip blog, used but in good condition. A few thoughts on how to keep it that way.
Owen Van Natta, Facebook's former COO, is officially taking over MySpace, News Corp.'s social network. With its user numbers stagnant, MySpace desperately needs a restart. Is Van Natta the guy to do it?
• Arthur Sulzberger Jr. says he has no plans to take the New York Times Co. private, despite "brutal conditions" that threaten his paper's survival. [NYT]
• Meanwhile, Moody's has downgraded the NYT Co.'s credit rating. [E&P]
• A few theories on why Peter Kaplan departed Jared Kushner's Observer, and what's in store…
Former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta is the frontrunner to replace Chris DeWolfe as MySpace CEO. Blog lordling Jason Calacanis has been jokingly nominated for the News Corp. gig. Here's who should get it.
It's a day of high intrigue at Facebook headquarters, with CFO Gideon Yu leaving abruptly. So why was former COO Owen Van Natta, who left last year, spotted walking out of a Facebook office?
A tipster tells us that Project Playlist, the online-music startup which has just hired former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta and raised $15 million, has hired Mike Sheridan as its CFO. Sheridan served less than a year at Facebook, where he was replaced by Gideon Yu.
Be careful what you wish for. Owen Van Natta, the former Facebook COO who left the social network in February, has gotten the CEO job he said he wanted — as the new chief of Project Playlist, an online-music startup. (It's been widely reported that MySpace wooed him to run its MySpace Music spinoff. He also had…
Why can't News Corp. find anyone to run MySpace Music, the spinoff from its social network which is part-owned by major labels? No one seems able to state the obvious: MySpace Music is a feature, not a company. The outside investment it garners is just an elaborate way of cutting in the labels on MySpace's…
Embarrassingly, MySpace unveiled its plans for MySpace Music without a CEO in place. The store's set to open later this month, but who will mind it? The Los Angeles Times suggests the shortlist is down to two names: Owen Van Natta, Facebook's former COO (left), and Andy Schuon, a longtime Universal Music executive…
A tipster reports spotting Mark Zuckerberg in San Francisco today, outside 21st Amendment in San Francisco. He was "having a conversation (all smiles) with two other guys," our tipster tells us. The restaurant and bar is near San Francisco's South-of-Market startup epicenter, so there's any number of reasons…
FERRY BUILDING, SAN FRANCISCO — Let's be clear: Local PR firm OutCast's CEO Dinner event Thursday night wasn't really a dinner — most people ate standing up. Nor were there many CEOs. (I counted one: Jim Louderback of Revision3.) It's a far cry from years past where the decimated post-bubble survivors of San…
CARLSBAD, CA — D6 conference organizer Kara Swisher and bicoastal überflack Brooke Hammerling prepare to torment former Facebook COO Van Natta, who doesn't seem to mind. Can you suggest a better caption? Do so in the comments, but behave yourselves and be clever, or I'll ban all you filthy louts. The best one will…
When I ran into former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta at last night's Fast Company party, he was in high spirits, claiming to enjoy life as an unemployed dad. But he's made no secret of his desire to get back into the startup game at some point — this time as CEO, not a dispensable No. 2. Which is why this photo, sent…
