As you might have noticed by now, we have hired J.B. Holston as CEO of NewsGator Technologies.  I’ve gotten quite a bit of email about this – some of it along the lines of “so the VC’s brought in a CEO, huh?”

It’s not like that at all.

When I first started working with Brad Feld at Mobius Venture Capital, and it became pretty clear that we were going to do a deal, we started talking about the management team. Basically, Brad said that he would personally support me in whatever role I wanted, but that I couldn’t do everything myself. [aside: good advice!]  Ok, so it was time to get it together and figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up. :-)  I started meeting some people who were potentially good fits to join our management team, and J.B. was one of these folks who was a great fit, had a great background, and someone I got along with right away.

At the same time, I was chatting with some other folks (both CEO’s and founders of various companies), and started defining in my own mind what the different roles needed to be. As I did this, it became clear to me that I personally wanted to spend time working on product direction, vision, development, and evangelism. Things like sales, finance, and other such tasks sounded interesting (believe it or not!), but I knew I’d have a lot to learn to come up to speed in those areas. The product-related roles are where I can contribute the most, and are also what I personally enjoy doing the most.

So based on that, Brad and I chatted some more, and decided to move forward with J.B. and make him an offer.  He’s been working with us for the last couple of months, and I couldn’t be happier about the situation. He brings a lot of ideas and experience to the table, and I’m learning new things from him every day. And at the end of the day, we’re a better company now – and that’s what really matters.

My new title is CTO / Founder, with responsibilities as described above. It’s a great job – I get to do all the fun stuff. :-)

So please join me in welcoming J.B. to our team!