Rogelio Choy (Mr. Let Me Be BLUNT) started out in the eBay developers program and then went over to work on Motors/Auto parts. He announced on his blog yesterday that he's leaving eBay for Rockyou.com.
Ro rocketed to blogosphere fame when he posted a pretty good Paypal vs. Google checkout trash-talking on his blog and then it was digged and started to get quite a bit of press so he deleted it and then that made it spin even more.
I'm not familiar with Rockyou, but they have some pretty cool widgets that I'll check out for the ole' blog. They also seem to work closely with MySpace which is smart.
We worked closely with Ro and he's always been a stand-up, go to bat for the large-seller (and developer) guy. So I wanted to publicly wish Ro nothing but the biggest success in his new venture, we're going to miss him in the eBay world, but i have a feeling he'll iterate his way back here over time.
Update: While researching this article, I found several articles about a nasty legal wrangle that involves Rockyou and the previous company where the founders worked. I hope this doesn't impact Ro.
Update 2 - Gotta love the internet, google took me to this slideshow of pics from Ro's goodbye lunch. Greg Isaacs makes an appearance and several other eBayers. One of them is marked "soon to be ex-ebay" - hmmm.
In his honor, I used RockYou to create this "scatch-picture". Use the coin to scratch and see the underlying image!
Scot - Don't read anything into the "one soon to be ex-eBayer comment" -- that refers to Ro, since he still is at eBay for another week. The ex-eBayer in that picture is Jason Steinhorn.
Posted by: Alan Lewis | November 19, 2006 at 06:57 AM
Scot, a number of key lower level eBay employees have left for greener pastures lately as well as 2 major execs in Jeff Jordan and Maynard Webb. I see a trend forming. From your point of view, is there trouble brewing among the rank and file?
Posted by: Randy Smythe | November 17, 2006 at 01:59 PM