Mastodon founder Eugene Rochko has officially resigned as CEO. The move comes ten months after the company announced it would transition to a non-profit entity and that Rochko would be leaving his position. Rochko will play an advisory role with the company.
In a blog post about the decision, Rochko pointed to Reiling’s desire to avoid becoming another egotistical founder who “harms thriving communities.” He added, “But it would be ridiculous for me to pretend that there is no self-interest involved. Being in charge of a social media project is, obviously, quite a stressful endeavor, and I don’t have the right personality for it.”
Felix Hlatky has taken over the role of executive director in his place. Hlatky has worked at Mastodon since March 2020 and plans to focus on team expansion, long-term financial stability, and making the servers easier to run securely and efficiently.
Currently, Mastodon is operating as a non-profit in the US, but aims to establish a permanent home base in Belgium as a non-profit, known as AISBL. Mastodon previously had non-profit status in Germany but lost it last year.
Since announcing the transition to a non-profit, Mastodon has attempted to seek outside funding. It shared that Stock Exchange co-founder Jeff Atwood and his family gave €2.2 million ($2.5 million) to the organization. A portion of the cash flow has been spent on hiring new staff across its engineering, marketing, operations and product teams. Rochko also received a lump sum compensation of €1 million ($1.2 million) after ten years of “below fair market wages”.