Molecularist

For some of you, this might be just another press release for just another Silicon Valley company (see quote and link below). For me, I see and feel a ton of things at once (hey, I won’t get sappy on you).

I first met Barak in early 2004,* when Six Apart was a teensy company, before blogging swept the mainstream. We were introduced to him via Marko Ahtisaari, a personal friend of Barak’s Neoteny collegue, Joi Ito.

Our little team was building a product called Lifeblog and we were starting to do some partnerships, get a feel for the field (a long story I’m willing to tell for a few beers), and make sure we did things in the proper way (another long story I’m willing to tell for a few beers).

From then on, I worked with Barak and Loïc, his counterpart in Europe, on bringing Nokia and SIx Apart closer together. The two of them were key in introducing me to a whole new world that was booming back then, a world that put individuals in the Web, a world newly-labeled to give meaning to what we were all doing, a world of people I admire for their creativity, sense of fun, and long stream of trend-breaking products.

I can say that I would not be doing what I do today – building Ovi.com – if it weren’t for Barak and the people he so expertly led.

Thanks and I wish him the best.

Link: Six Apart – Press:

Six Apart, the world’s leading independent blogging services and software company, today announced that Christopher J. Alden has been appointed Chairman and CEO. Alden succeeds Barak Berkowitz, who has served as Chairman and CEO since January 2004.

Mena, the co-founder of Six Apart, says a few things on this. Also, Chris, the new CEO, looks back on how he got there.

*Heh heh, I just remembered that Barak and I sort of crossed paths at an earlier time, via his media agency Krause and Taylor. I wrote a few press articles for them, when Barak was running Omnisky, a cutting-edge mobile internet service. For laughs, here’s a now quaint article, from 7 years ago or so, in which I mention Omnisky.