Naveen Selvadurai, Foursquare Co-Founder, Will Leave The Company
Naveen is Co-founder of foursquare and prior to founding foursquare, he was Lead Architect at Socialight and was a Senior Software Architect with the Global Digital Business group at Sony Music Entertainment. In this role, he oversaw and developed various applications that dealt with content management and distribution of mobile products and was the lead developer of Sony's Music Box mobile application. Before Sony, he consulted for New York-based Run Tones and enjoyed software engineering stints at Sun Microsystems and Lucent Technologies.
Naveen graduated with degrees from King's College London in the UK and Worcester Polytechnic Institute in the US, and went to work with Lucent, Sony, Nokia and Sun Microsystems before he started his mobile social networking venture Foursquare along with Dennis Crowley. His joint venture has an estimated value of $600 million. He has recently been listed in the 'World's New Young Millionaires' released by AOL Small Business. He has been on Fox Business Network, and CNN's special by Fareed Zakaria, "Getting American back to #1," talking about how he became the person that he is now.
This is what Naveen posted on his bog:
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three years ago this week, when dennis and i were putting the finishing touches on the vision for this company, we had a hundred or so beta testers who helped us reach the finish line. we went down to sxsw to tell the world about foursquare.
it's hard to believe that now, three years later, instead of one hundred beta testers, the company has over a hundred incredibly talented employees helping us realize that vision. and they're building amazing things.
in that time, i've worn a ton of hats: from product to engineering, from funding rounds to roadshows, from recruiting to evangelizing. but, after three years, i feel i've done all i can do and i'm moving on. dennis and i have been discussing timing for a while, and we decided that now, on this anniversary, it feels right to begin the transition. so this will be my last month working at foursquare. over the course of the next few weeks, i'm going to be taking a step back as my final projects near their release.
i've always been here for the company and i always will be. i look quietly around the office every once in a while as the team works (not. creepy. at. all.) and i can't tell you how proud i am of everyone. we've brought together an incredibly special group - one that's going to go down in history - and they're going to keep making us all proud.
going forward, i'm going to continue to be connected to the company: i'm on the board, i'll still be advising, and i'm obviously going to be the single most vocal user. but the spring is time for things that are new, and i realize that i have a desire to do something new as well. i'm not sure about my exact next steps, but i'll probably get back to what i love most - being an entrepreneur, learning and building new things.
three years ago, we took an idea and threw it into the world. i'm going to miss the crazy intensity that is foursquare, but am excited to see where it all goes from here.
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