Foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai announced on Sunday that he is leaving the company.
“I’ve done all I can do and I’m moving on,” Selvadurai wrote in a post on his personal blog.
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He said that the company’s third anniversary seemed like a good time to leave. “[Fellow co-founder] Dennis [Crowley] and I have been discussing timing for a while, and we decided that now, on this anniversary, it feels right to begin the transition,” he wrote. “So this will be my last month working at Foursquare. Over the course of the next few weeks, I’m going to be taking a step back as my final projects near their release. “
That doesn’t mean that Selvadurai will be disconnected from the company. He further explained that he plans to stay on the company’s board. “I’ll still be advising, and I’m obviously going to be the single most vocal user.”
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Selvadurai wrote that he wasn’t sure what he’ll do next. “The spring is time for things that are new, and I realize that I have a desire to do something new as well. I’m not sure about my exact next steps, but I’ll probably get back to what I love most – being an entrepreneur, learning and building new things.”
A Foursquare rep offered the following statement about Selvadurai’s departure:
“When Naveen and Dennis launched Foursquare at SXSW 2009, they had a few hundred beta testers. Now, as we approach our third birthday, we have a community of over 15 million that has checked in over 1.5 billion times. This wouldn’t have been possible without Naveen’s creativity, vision, and tireless work. We’re sad to see him go, but excited to see what he builds next. We can’t thank him enough for everything he’s done to make Foursquare what it is today.”
While Selvadurai was fairly vague about his exact reasons for leaving, it’s not unusual for a co-founder to scale back his or her involvement after a few years. Twitter’s Biz Stone, for instance, announced a similar transition last June, which came after the company’s other co-founders, Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey, also rolled back their involvement with Twitter. Reid Hoffman stepped down as CEO of LinkedIn in 2007 after co-founding the company in 2002.
Image courtesy of Flickr, dantegeek
This story originally published on Mashable here.
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