Exclusive: Former MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe Raising Money For New Venture
Just three months ago MySpace cofounder and CEO Chris DeWolfe found out he was being abruptly and rudely replaced by Owen Van Natta. So what does the guy who built the biggest site on the Internet from scratch do next?
Context & Ripple Effects
The arc here runs through April 2009: News Corp. first explored its MySpace CEO options, then installed former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta in place of cofounder Chris DeWolfe, with ex-AOL exec Mike Jones slotted in as the likely No. 2 (Van Natta's takeover). That handoff came against a deteriorating backdrop — US social-network ad spend projected to fall 3% in 2009, with MySpace's own troubles cited as a factor, plus June reports of layoffs hitting 25% or more of staff.
TechCrunch now reports, three months after the ouster, that DeWolfe is raising money for a new venture — a claim not yet confirmed by named investors. It matters because it tests whether a founder whose property defined the last social era can attract capital while his old company shrinks under new management.
First-order effects
- DeWolfe moves from running a declining giant to courting investors for an unproven startup, with his MySpace track record as both credential and question mark.
- Van Natta's MySpace loses its most visible public face entirely, concentrating the turnaround narrative on him and Mike Jones just as restructuring pressure builds.
Second-order effects
- Venture investors face a pricing test on 'founder premium' in a 2009 market where social-networking ad economics are contracting — DeWolfe's raise will signal how much the MySpace brand still buys.
- Any hires DeWolfe makes would come from the same LA tech and media talent pool MySpace needs to retain during its rumored 300–500-person cutbacks.
Third-order effects
- If the raise lands, it extends the pattern of ousted Web 2.0 founders recycling their names into second acts rather than retiring — separating personal franchise value from the fate of the company they left.
- It also underscores the structural shift underway since Murdoch and DeWolfe launched the MySpace platform in 2007: scale alone no longer defends a social network, and both incumbents and departing founders must re-found around something new.
The trend: Social networking's first generation is splitting apart — shrinking incumbents under new operators, and their departed founders converting name recognition into fresh ventures even as category ad spending contracts.