Sources: BitTorrent fires its co-CEOs and an unknown number of staffers, is closing its Los Angeles production studio and Now streaming service
Context & Ripple Effects
BitTorrent spent 2016 building a consumer-media business on top of its file-transfer brand: it named co-CEOs in April with plans for a mobile streaming video service and ad-supported Bundle streaming, spun off its enterprise Sync product into Resilio under former CEO Eric Klinker in June, and even floated a lean election-season TV news channel via a job listing. The Variety report marks the sharp end of that arc — sources say both co-CEOs are out, an unknown number of staffers fired, the Los Angeles production studio closed, and the Now streaming service shut down.
The company's own follow-up complicates the picture: within days BitTorrent said Now is not shutting down and that only one co-CEO, Robert Delamar, actually left — meaning the retrenchment is real but narrower than first reported, concentrated on original content production rather than the streaming platform itself.
First-order effects
- Both co-CEOs lose their jobs per sources (the company later confirmed only Robert Delamar's departure), and an unknown number of staffers are cut immediately.
- Closing the Los Angeles production studio ends BitTorrent's in-house original-content operation, the most expensive leg of the consumer-media push launched after the April co-CEO appointment.
Second-order effects
- With original production gone, BitTorrent's remaining media bets — the Now app, ad-supported Bundle streaming, and the floated BitTorrent News channel — compete on aggregation rather than exclusive content, weakening their pitch against better-funded streamers.
- The rapid walk-back of the shutdown report signals internal disagreement over scope, which raises execution risk for partners and advertisers weighing deals with the platform.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — enterprise assets spun off to Resilio, production shut down, leadership churn — BitTorrent consolidates back around its core transfer technology and licensed-content distribution, abandoning the full-stack media-company ambition.
- Co-CEO structures keep proving fragile at small companies: six months from appointment to removal here suggests dual-CEO experiments will stay rare outside succession planning.
The trend: BitTorrent's 2016 expansion into original streaming content is unwinding nearly as fast as it was announced, pulling the company back toward its core file-distribution technology.