The CEO of NPM, a startup that provides a crucial service to 11 million developers, has resigned after a year-long tenure marked by controversy
- On Friday, NPM CEO Bryan Bogensberger resigned from his position.
- NPM provides important JavaScript tools to 11 million developers, forming a major backbone for modern software development.
- During his tenure of a little over a year, Bogensberger had been working to break NPM's reliance on venture capital with a push to snag larger companies as customers.
- Bogensberger's resignation comes after a string of controversies: The company has been criticized for the dismissal of employees involved in unionization efforts, and Business Insider recently reported that Bogensberger's management style rubbed many employees the wrong way.
- In July, NPM cofounder Laurie Voss also resigned.
- Right now, NPM is searching for a new CEO as a leadership team made up of senior NPM executives takes over daily operations.
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The CEO of NPM, an Oakland-based startup that provides tools for 11 million developers, announced his resignation on Friday.
Bryan Bogensberger joined NPM as CEO in July 2018. NPM provides a free, popular tool for coding in JavaScript, one of the world's most popular programming languages. Its free package registry powers much of the software that runs the internet.
Bogensberger's resignation is effective immediately, and he plans to pursue new opportunities.
"I am proud of the complete transformation we have been able to make in such a short period of time," Bogensberger said in a statement. "I wish this completely revamped, passionate team monumental success in the years to come."
Under Bogensberger's tenure, NPM tried to break its reliance on venture capital by expanding into the lucrative enterprise market, trying to nab large companies as customers.
However, as Business Insider reported in August, Bogensberger's time at the company was marked by controversy. In March, the company was criticized for how it handled the dismissal of 10% of its staff - and, not long after, several more employees also resigned. Sources told Business Insider that Bogensberger's management style rankled long-time employees.
Some of those employees who were dismissed were involved in unionization efforts at NPM, resulting in complaints filed with the National Labor Relations Board. Three of the complaints were recently settled.
And then, in July, NPM co-founder Laurie Voss resigned.
Currently, NPM's board of directors are searching for a new CEO. In the meantime, NPM will be led by a team comprised of senior NPM executives.
"Bryan brought his deep experience in guiding technology companies to position npm for future growth," NPM co-founder Isaac Schlueter said in a statement. "On behalf of the board of directors and my colleagues at npm, we wish him the best."
Prior to joining NPM, Bogensberger served as three years as the CEO of Inktank, which he cofounded and later sold to Red Hat for $175 million.
Jonathan Cowperthwait, NPM's former vice president of marketing, says that despite Bogensberger's resignation, NPM is still "well-positioned" in the developer tool industry.
"NPM is fundamentally well-positioned, and still has a unique advantage in the developer tools space by being the center of the open source universe," Cowperthwait told Business Insider. "Many of us spent the last year watching our friends and colleagues' struggle through our fingers, but I'm still profoundly confident in the company's ability to turn this around. Sometimes bad executives happen to a good company."
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