Cheezburger's Ben Huh steps down as CEO, will be replaced with President and COO Scott Moore
How to Jump Into the Deep End of Change — I'm leaving Cheezburger, Inc., the company I started. — Dear Friends and Fans of Cheezburger, — After 8 incredible years, I am stepping down from being CEO of Cheezburger today.
Context & Ripple Effects
Ben Huh hands off the company he founded and ran for eight years to an insider: President and COO Scott Moore. The move caps a rough stretch in which Cheezburger cut 24 employees — roughly 35 percent of its staff — amid shifting mobile economics and endured about three years of internal turmoil before relaunching a platform for remixing funny images.
The succession also set up what followed: seven months later Cheezburger was sold to an undisclosed newly formed overseas private media company, with Moore staying on as CEO under the new owners.
First-order effects
- Scott Moore takes full control of a company mid-pivot from desktop to mobile, inheriting both the relaunched remix platform and the leaner post-layoff cost base.
- Ben Huh exits day-to-day leadership but stays connected to consumer media — his earlier team-up with SimpleGeo's Matt Galligan on the mobile news startup Circa shows where his attention was already heading.
Second-order effects
- The insider handoff made the company sellable without disruption: when the overseas private media buyer arrived, continuity under Moore was part of the package rather than a condition to negotiate.
- Assets built during Huh's tenure, like the seven-figure acquisition of Know Your Meme and its internet-culture documentation business, pass intact to the new ownership structure.
Third-order effects
- If this pattern holds alongside similar founder departures — Mailchimp's Ben Chestnut stepping aside after 21 years and Kickstarter's Aziz Hasan leaving after three — founder-CEO exits routed through internal operators become the standard prelude to a company's next phase, whether that phase is a pivot or a sale.
The trend: Founder-led consumer internet companies are increasingly handing the CEO seat to inside operators ahead of pivots or ownership changes, trading founder identity for operational continuity.