Technology industry insiders know the name, but for those who may not know – meet Matt Williams, the newly named CEO of Digg.
With the exit of Jay Adelson back in April, Kevin Rose has been running the organization all the while doing an executive search to permanently fill the CEO position.
Matt Williams had been with Amazon since 1999 – in his most recent post he served as the General Manager of Consumer Payments reporting directly to CEO Jeff Bezos.
As far as Kevin Rose, he'll move back into the Chief Architect role.
If you want some interesting background perspective from Matt, check out this interview he did with Ina Steiner of AuctionBytes.com a couple years ago, when he was Amazon's Director of Business Solutions.
Update: Here is the official statement outta Digg on the New CEO announcement:
Hey Everyone-
I’d like to update you on the latest change at Digg. After several months of searching, we are excited to announce that Matt Williams will become the CEO of Digg. As you know, I have been the interim CEO, while we looked for the right person, and I will still remain actively involved in the product, but am handing over the day-to-day running of the business to Matt.
Matt has spent the past 11 years in a variety of roles at Amazon, most recently as GM for Consumer Payments, and earlier in his career he led Amazon’s community efforts. He was the Founder and CEO of LiveBid.com, which was acquired by Amazon in May of 1999. Matt brings seasoned management experience and has a reputation for delivering innovative products and excellent results.
Quote from Matt: “The launch of version 4 was a big moment for Digg and I believe in the potential of this new platform. There is so much innovation yet to come — being the best in the world at curating news means solving the information overload we all experience every day. The Digg team has already made great strides in this direction and there is much more ahead. I’m excited to join such a talented team and such a vibrant Digg community.”
I know it has been a wild past week since the launch of our new platform. Introducing change is never easy, and bringing something as radically different as Digg version 4 was bound to generate a strong reaction. We are absolutely listening and really value everyone’s feedback as we take Digg in new directions. Matt is the right leader for Digg and we’re all truly excited about moving forward. Thank you very much for your on-going support as we make these changes and we hope you’ll join us in welcoming Matt!
Kevin
Cool blog!