

Tumblr CTO Marco Arment Steps Down - martingordon
http://www.marco.org/1161306109

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bl4k
I tried signing up for Tumblr for the first time last week and it took me a
few attempts because of page timeouts. I revisited again yesterday and the
site was still having problems.

Tumblr reminds me of what Twitter went through - they are growing quickly.
Good of Marco to recognize his limitations and step aside.

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swilliams
I do wonder what he's going to do next. Instapaper is at that point where it
doesn't really need new features, so I hope he doesn't try to overdo it, and
instead concentrates on something new.

~~~
jonknee
Instapaper should be on Android. Its parsing can also get better, Apple's
Reader feature does a better job at grabbing the whole article and just the
article (with Instapaper I usually need to first find a print this article
link).

It could also become a good way to find new content as Instapaper knows what's
being saved and should also know what's really being read.

~~~
arikfr
For Android you should try Instafetch. Besides all the known features from
Instapaper, he uses his own server to parse the articles. The nice thing about
this is that he uses Readability's algorithm to parse them, which results in
really nice layout.

~~~
jonknee
The advantage of the same app on all the platforms is I don't have to worry
about where I added it if I want to read on my Android phone, iPad, or Kindle.
If I read it on my phone it should be marked read on the iPad. If I leave off
halfway though that should be reflected. Etc etc.

~~~
arikfr
Instafetch works with Instapaper's list of articles, so no matter where you
add a link (or mark as read), it will be synced with all devices including
Android/Instafetch.

Didn't have the chance to test if it remembers where you left reading across
devices though.

Anyway, I understand the benefit of having the app from the same provider. My
point was that if you need a solution now, you can have it.

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ivankirigin
This thread doesn't have enough of what I expected: congrats and good luck,
Marco!

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iampims
If that means more resources for Instapaper, that's a great news.

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darren
Hopefully the new CTO knows to how to enable SSL on their login page and
ecommerce pages.

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martingordon
According to TechCrunch, he'll be working on Instapaper full-time:
<http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/21/marco-arment-instapaper/>

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joelhaus
Instapaper for Android coming soon... _hope so!_

It's a gift that allows someone to design apps like Tumblr and Instapaper.

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skbohra123
wondering if it has anything to do with posterous?

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aditya
Doubt it. 4 years in startupland is when your equity traditionally vests, so
it's a good time to step back and figure out if you want to take on a new
challenge.

~~~
hello_moto
In general, for startup like this, how big of a % does he going to get from
his equity?

~~~
dailyrorschach
I think since he's considered a co-founder, it would be a considerable amount.

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andre3k1
In business strategy this is known as The Peter Principle. From Wikipedia, The
Peter Principle is the principle that "in a hierarchy every employee tends to
rise to their level of incompetence".

As Tumblr grew beyond Marco's abilities he became incompetent as a CTO. Great
job of him admit this and step down versus having to be laid off.

~~~
adambyrtek
Do you have any arguments to prove this thesis? If not, then you are
rightfully downvoted.

~~~
code_duck
I think this is somewhat similar to that, yes.

"Tumblr’s technical management needs have evolved to require types of
experience that I don’t have"

That's is essentially exactly what Marco said. Not that he was incompetent
exactly, but that he was not suited for what the CTO job at tumblr had become.

I don't think it's the Peter Principle though - he didn't rise to that
position. The position changed as tumblr grew.

I agree that it's wise of him to see this and choose to step down; I've seen
other companies suffer when the founding engineers were not wise enough to
admit that the technicalities of scaling from a medium size site to a truly
large one was beyond their experience.

