BitTorrent Names New CEO in Management Shakeup

Written by Ryan Lawler

Friday, November 7. 2008 at 03:00 PM EST Post a comment

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The personnel shakeup at BitTorrent Inc. continues, with the company announcing today that it has installed former CTO Eric Klinker into a new role as chief executive.

Klinker replaces former CEO Doug Walker, who joined BitTorrent about a year ago. Contentinople has learned that BitTorrent director of communications Lily Lin has also been let go.

The news that Klinker will take over comes just a day after founder and former president Ashwin Navin announced to the world (or at least those on his private email list) that he was leaving BitTorrent to work on some sort of "caffeinated" technology incubator with YouTube Inc. founder Steve Chen and some others. [Ed. note: Despite his email to the contrary, Navin is still listed as president on BitTorrent's newly updated management team Web page.]

Ashwin's departure isn't the only significant personnel change the company has had recently. In just the past year, BitTorrent has made a number of executive appointments, including a new CFO, VP of product management, and VP of engineering. In addition to the management shakeup, the P2P technology firm cut about 20 percent of its staff in August. [UPDATE: The New York Times is now reporting that BitTorrent has cut half its staff, in addtion to the August cuts.]

Perhaps the one bright spot for BitTorrent in recent months was the announcement that it had closed a $17 million round of financing in September. The funding came from existing investors Sand Hill Capital, Doll Capital Management (DCM), and Accel Partners, with DAG Ventures Management also participating in the round.

The announcement of yet another management change prompts several questions about BitTorrent's prospects for the future as well as the company's business model.

When Walker was brought on board, BitTorrent was focused on selling its P2P technology to service providers looking for more efficient content delivery. In an interview earlier this year, Walker told Contentinople that he was chosen for the CEO role in part because of his experience in the media and entertainment world.

Klinker, by contrast, is a technologist. Prior to being named CTO of BitTorrent, he was CTO and vice president of engineering at Internap Network Services Corp. (Nasdaq: INAP). He has been a key player in the development of BitTorrent's commercial client software, as well as the company's Delivery Network Accelerator (DNA) service and its software development kit (SDK). 

The big question for Klinker will be the same that Walker faced: how to take the technology developed by Navin and co-founder Bram Cohen and monetize it. So far, it appears the company has had a number of false starts.

Despite striking content deals with 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., MTV Networks, and Paramount Pictures Corp., BitTorrent's download store never took off, and it is reportedly being shopped as the company de-emphasizes its direct-to-consumer business.

As for its Delivery Network Accelerator (DNA) service, BitTorrent has faced challenges in getting media companies to pony up for P2P-based delivery of their video and other large files. While the company hasn't named any media customers yet, Klinker said in an interview earlier this year that the company had signed on "10 to 20" media customers to use the service.