Ben Huh has lived his life with a formative philosophy tucked neatly in his breast pocket, close to his heart: make the world happy for a few moments every day. There’s not one person out there who hasn’t died laughing on FAIL Blog, fallen in love with the cutest cats, or rolled their eyes at a Bad Joke Eel meme. In no small way Huh has absolutely accomplished his mission.
However, we heard today that while Huh will always remain committed to making the world happy, he’ll no longer be doing it at Cheezburger. He officially announced, via blog post, that he’ll be stepping down as CEO and handing off duties to current President and COO Scott Moore.
“Scott has proven to be a skilled operator and steadfast leader,” says Huh in the post. “He taught me a lot about being strategic, decisive, and positive. He has taught me that I have much to learn, and I am grateful for his dedicated to Cheezburger.”
Just so you know this move isn’t coming out of nowhere. Huh actually recommended this change to the board a few months ago and they’ve been preparing for it as they grow towards profitability. Huh will, however, remain as a board member for Cheezburger.
It’s interesting to note that Huh specifically cites the recent close of Circa as something that indicated, perhaps, it was to embark on a new and unscripted adventure. To that end he’s happy that he has the ability to neatly wrap up his work with Cheezburger as he looks forward to exploring life with his wife Emily.
“Now it is time for me to create pause and be mindful of what I will do, who I am, and to write about lessons learned that may be helpful to all of us,” reads the blog post. “Being CEO and Founder of Cheezburger has been a true adventure and one that has helped me grow into the person I am today. I cannot thank you enough for being a part of this adventure.”
We’ll always treasure the laughs and memories we’ve made at Tech.Co with him, that’s for sure. He came by our Chicago Session event in 2014 and not only talked the crowd through what exactly a meme is, but also told us all why entrepreneurs are stubborn assholes. The entire Tech.Co team wants to say thank you, Mr. Huh, for always putting a smile on our faces. We wish Emily and you the absolute best of luck no matter where the universe takes you next!
To finish: “I will miss our creative bat-shit insane ideas that end up working. I will miss the dedication and craftsmanship of our technical and product teams. I will miss staying up impatiently all night waiting for something, anything to go live. I will miss the random hysterical laughter in the office. I may or may not miss the finer points of what constitutes a visible nipple, but I will miss the discussions about the artistic merit of photobombs, and I will also miss telling a co-worker to tell an advertiser to fuck off, but not really going through with it. I will miss all of you who are and were a part of our motley crew who built an impossible dream,” says Huh.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons