Global Grind Shake-up, CEO out, on the way to Deadpool?
While working on a follow-up story to the Global Grind celebrity mass that they currently perpetrate as content I came across something much more interesting. The CEO of the company Navarrow Wright is no longer listed on the company About Us page suggesting that Wright and the company have parted ways. A cached version of the page from March 17th at 6:28pm still lists him as CEO so the split was more than likely the result of internal disagreement and definitely abrupt.
This is no surprise especially if you take a look at the direction of the product since Russell Simmons has become more involved in his new role as Editor-in-Chief, which said simply means Simmons leveraging his celeb contacts for content. In most cases to the detriment of the product. My bet is the 2, Wright and Simmons, couldn’t see eye to eye on the direction of the product and what is actually is. I’m calling this more than a hunch since it was clear tension between the 2 when they were featured in a video while at NPR studios for an interview in November of last year:
Russell’s need to constantly over talk the CEO and wrongly correct what the prodcut is a number times is more than enough to prove the working relationship of the 2. The bigger question though is now that Wright seems to be out what will Global Grind become, is it on its way to the deadpool, and will ACCEL lose their $4.5 million investment with media mogul Russell Simmons running this web start-up?
Update: Wright’s LinkedIn profile
has been updated to show that his CEO and president postions are no longer current.
Update 2: Just got an email in from someone inside Global Grind confirming (what I already know as fact) Wright is no longer with the company, see below for screenshot, click for fullview:
Update 3: Wow people are coming out of the woodworks, I just got this in my email as an additional update:
Category: News, web 2.0 | Tags: accel partners, deadpool, global grind, navarrow wright, Russell SimmonsYou are completely correct in your Black Web 2.0 story on the shake-up, happened on March 6th. It wasn’t pretty. Osman Earlp is the new “interim” CEO & President and Andrea Gouw is the new GM. BTW, Andrea just happens to be the sister of Teresia Gouw Ranzetta who is on the Accel board.
http://www.accel.com/people/bio.php?person_id=3&group_id=1
About the Author Angela Benton is the Founder and Publisher of BlackWeb20.com. Her experience spans a variety of industries including consultative relationships with companies such as UPS, Bizjournals.com, Realestate.com, and Lendingtree.com.
See all posts by Angela.
accounts might sound mere fairy tales, but it is quite possible that at least the taller bodies were of royalty and the short statures bodies
dating websites
I saw that interview, boy Russell Simmions was a joke, the CEO was not given a chance. What are we going to do with these black moguls? Does he really need the attention that much?
I saw that interview, boy Russell Simmions was a joke, the CEO was not given a chance. What are we going to do with these black moguls? Does he really need the attention that much?
Every site is a variation of other successful sites that have worked in the past, Facebook and Myspace are just better executed sites than Blackplanet and even Blackvoices, and add in Friendster but the Asian dudes at Blackplanet really get the award for being ripped off, they had everything that Myspace had but decided to go the way of a dating site
ANGELA, LYNNE,
Rumor has it that there had been some personal conflicts between Russ and Navarrow and also some politics that added to the fire. Any insight a week after the story broke out?
Been using a RUSH CARD for nearly 3 years now.
Have friends that have one also.
what's wrong with the RUSH card? I thought it was a pretty successful product?
Ok – you caught me after a couple of Red Bulls.
Unique technology and small staff – I definitely concur.
@herb — reelax man — only opinions. I spend a great deal of media on black targeted websites for my clients. I want many to succeed — I just have a clear view of the silliness of so many projects out there (GG is just a Digg in black…most clones dont make it unless they can create a unique technology within their cloned idea). If they had a staff of less than 6 — they would do really well because less mouths to feed but that isnt the case. Luck to all!
@BlackAdAgencyGuy.
You seem pretty harsh on some of our fellow entrepreneurs! I actually think it's great regarding the efforts of TheRoot, Rushmore, Global Grind or any other entrepreneur who has had the cojones to step into the ring and actually take a stab at it. They tried and if they've “failed”, I hope they dust themselves off and try again. Lord knows, I've gotten my best successes from learning from past failures (the watchword for all of my projects now is “Fail Fast”). We, as a community, need more of these mavericks. Your statement actually reminded me of a quote from a speech that Teddy Roosevelt gave in Paris:
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
Herb.
http://www.blackbottom.com
I've heard this news as well. But the way that it was given to me, from someone in the industry, and very close to the sources is not only that Navarrow is out as CEO, but that the company would be closing up shop.
@Kevin: Just my opinion man — didnt mean to ruffle. my last sentence said that an easy re-mix of their business model could make them successful…so I am optimistic about their opportunity (hip hop is just a very limited view for their technology). No black project (today) is EVER going to be a twitter, a facebook, etc because its….black and believe it or not — blacks dont even want just black. Once companies are comfortable with confining themselves and their goals and don't have expectations at those (facebook/twitter) levels and tone down the arrogance meters — I think you'll see a lot more successful projects coming out where projects are tempered and realistic in their goals or a lot more minorities developing sites and utilities that are suited and built for all people who will end up being hugely successful. One thing is for publishers…staying in black is not going to make anyone a billionaire online for at least 20-25 years (about how long it took bob johnson to pull it off)
I don't see a problem with this? Why not get rid of people if the company isn't producing? That's life, as one's business must push forward.
Update 3: Wow people are coming out of the woodworks, I just got this in my email as an additional update:
You are completely correct in your Black Web 2.0 story on the shake-up, happened on March 6th. It wasn't pretty. Osman Earlp is the new “interim” CEO & President and Andrea Gouw is the new GM. BTW, Andrea just happens to be the sister of Teresia Gouw Ranzetta who is on the Accel board.
http://www.accel.com/people/bio.php?person_id=3…
Tiffany,
Quantcast's estimate for GG is only 87k uniques/mo. Most of them are paid traffic (google) as you have noticed. Try to google hip hop social network or any hip hop celeb and you end up with some GG ads. At least those $4.5M are directly re-injected in the economy
You aren't the first person I've heard this from… and I suspect we have the same source(s).
Not surprised, really. Shifting whole business models is never a good look. According to Compete, GG's traffic is up slightly: http://siteanalytics.compete.com/globalgrind.co…, but high-profile changes usually don't bode well.
@BlackAdAgencyGuy: Sounds like your standing on a soapbox. Numbers for Root and RushmoreDrive are up in a down economy. Your pessimism for these properties is fleeting.
@Anon thanks
For some reason people think I am lying mainly over @TechCrunch, I have NO reason to lie or make things up, lol, smh. I updated the post with a screenshot from my email from a second source, the first source was via phone so I have no documentation. Sheesh, the things we do, atleast no one can ever say I cried wolf, lol. I contacted Navarrow but of course he is unreachable. I have no idea what he will do next. I'll keep my ear to the streets though.
Angela, thanks for the article. I trust your credibility. Any idea of what Navarrow is going to do next?
Ouch – watching that video was painful. You could see that Navarrow was already feeling brow beaten even then. His eyes, posture, and facial expressions said it all
Ingredients for failure: Black Targeted website + Major Egos + major funding meaning that have to show some stride real soon + an unoriginal idea (ie Digg in black) + targeting a sub-niche (Black>>Music>>Hip Hop leaning/Gossip)
Navarrow will land at another sinking ship of a site….probably TheRoot, Rushmore, or some other nonsense someone threw up where they have to position that they've hired someone to prove that their serious. He gets to be in that ever rotating circle of black site executives that always seem to get hired for black site project after project (good money in that ROFL)
Best advice for GG…you've thrown a lot of money in building a aggregation technology…leave blackness behind and diversify and make a major entertainment news aggregation service. Thats where more ad dollars and traffic will be to recoup your money and then some.
There is my bone for the day.
My guess is it is in the deadpool, especially since T.I. will be incarcerated soon. We'll reach out to Rocky.
Yes just so happens that he was.
Was Navarrow on the “Digital Urbanites” panel at SXSW on Monday? Just trying to understand the timeline. Thanks.
what's going on with T.I.'s street cred by the way? they shut down the site “temporarily” in…..november.
Thanks for the concern Monica. This is fact from an undisclosed source, we don't report things that we know aren't true.
Did anyone email Global Grind? Phone them to confirm this? Conclusions based upon what you see as opposed to what you actually know as fact are two different things. I only say this because the language says “seems,” but with no indication that you actually spoke to a representative of the company to either confirm or deny what you believe to be truth. In reporting what is going on the black digital world, please give us the absolute facts that have been vetted so we can take all posts seriously. I say this with the utmost respect and concern for the integrity of the site.
very interesting happenings now only if the RUSH CARD could self destruct
Speaking as someone who knows a little bit about how it works behind the scenes at global grind, they generally have no idea what they're doing. I'm surprised the site has made it this long, and I don't expect it to still be here a year from now unless huge strides are made.
Kim Osorio's exit from the company was very abrupt also, but that one seemed to fly under the radar in the blogosphere.