Digg lays off 37 percent; Publisher bails for startup

Long gone are the days when then-Digg execs Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson would make joint appearances at tech industry conferences and giddily discuss a cluster of new features coming to the social news site--as well as the fact that they were, invariably, looking to hire new employees.

On Monday, following a report in AllThingsD that publisher and chief revenue officer Chas Edwards was bailing for a start-up, Pixazza, CEO Matt Williams e-mailed staffers to announce that "the burn rate is too high" at the company and that it would be laying off 25 of its 67 staffers, a total of 37 percent.

Williams, a former Amazon executive, joined Digg as CEO fewer than two months ago, following a major executive shake-up in which CEO Jay Adelson departed and was replaced temporarily by Rose. In the meantime, other prominent Digg employees started trickling out the door, a few heading to AOL and some to start-ups like SimpleGeo (co-founded by former employee Joe Stump) and Path. A month later, Digg laid off about 10 percent of its staff.

For more on this story, read Beleaguered Digg announces more layoffs on CNET News.