Tumblr’s founder and chief executive officer, David Karp, has announced his resignation from the company he founded ten years ago. In a post on Twitter, Karp shared a screenshot of the farewell letter he said he sent to his team at Tumblr, thanking them for what he considers an honor for steering the company over the past decade. It remains unclear what future career path Karp plans to take.
Karp’s resignation comes a few months after the completion of Verizon’s acquisition of Tumblr-owner Yahoo last June for $4.48 billion. Under the terms and conditions of the acquisition, Verizon and Yahoo will share the responsibility and any legal liabilities for the hacks into millions of Yahoo accounts that came to light after Verizon announced the acquisition bid last year. Still as part of the acquisition agreement, Verizon intended to merge Yahoo and AOL into a new single company called OATH, which now encompasses a variety of publications and brands such as Yahoo Sports, The Huffington Post, Engadget, TechCrunch, Tumblr, and Flickr. The acquisition also led to the resignation of former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer from the search engine company, which she led since July 2012. Tumblr was acquired by Yahoo in 2013, during which it was agreed that Karp would be receiving a cumulative amount of $110 million as a Yahoo employee to be paid over the course of four years. Meanwhile, Tumblr’s Chief Operating Officer Jeff D’Onofrio is set to replace Karp as the new CEO of the company, though it is not immediately clear whether or not his appointment is on an interim basis as Tumblr has not commented yet on whether it is looking for a permanent replacement to Karp.
Before launching Tumblr in 2007, Karp served as president of New York City-based Davidville from January 2006 through to December 2007, according to his LinkedIn account. Previously, he worked for UrbanBaby for more than three years as a computer personnel, starting in December 2002 until January 2006. Prior to that, he was also a web development intern at Frederator Studios from July 2001 to December 2002 after he held a sales position with Tekserve in New York City from July 2000 to July 2001.