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Digg's Ex-CEO Talks About the Rise and Falling of Digg
Brandon Davenport
Jay Adelson - Former CEO of Digg
Jay Adelson has become one of the most respected people when it comes to web startups, and has grown as the CEO of Digg, one of the most influential news aggregators in the world. Sadly, early this year, Jay stepped down as CEO at Digg and left the company in pursuit of something bigger, and Kevin Rose was left to act as CEO. After a short while, Kevin decided to recruit another CEO by the name of Matt Williams who was formerly a manager of Amazon and ever since, the company has begun to digg a hole for themselves — and theirs no sign of revival unless drastic changes are made.
At a recent Valley event, Jay Adelson opened up about his time as CEO of Digg, and he brought up a few interesting stories about being an entrepreneur and running a web startup — Here are a few quotes from BusinessInsider:
- If you’re running a startup, it’s going to consume your life and really kill your home life.
- There were only 2 offers for Digg in 5 years. But he also seems to say Digg never really got an offer. There was “interest,” he says, but until you have something on paper, you don’t have an offer.
- He says “talk is cheap,” and getting involved in acquisition talks can take their toll on the company. If you need to send your management away for a week to meet with a suitor that can be a killer.
- Adelson thinks he would have gotten a higher valuation for an acquisition if he hadn’t attempted to generate revenue. Instead, he insisted on getting sales, which allowed potential acquirers to create a multiple based on those low revenues.
- “I don’t think Digg is dead,” and saying otherwise is insulting to the millions of users on the site every month.
