Kara Swisher

Recent Posts by Kara Swisher

Divorce at eHarmony: Founder Takes Back CEO Job from former Zynga Exec Verba

The founder and chairman of eHarmony, Dr. Neil Clark Warren, is returning to the job of CEO at the well-known and oftimes controversial matchmaking site, according to an internal memo I obtained.

He replaces Jeremy Verba, the former Zynga exec who was named to the job a year ago at the Southern California-based eHarmony.

Prior to Zynga, Verba was president and CEO for online teen community Piczo and he also had worked at AOL and CNET.

It’s not clear why the sudden breakup at the dating service — whose motto is, “Fall in love for all the right reasons” — but in the memo Verba sent to staff today, he noted:

“The Company’s Board and I agreed upon this mutual separation on Friday. Our visions of the future of the business are not entirely aligned and we decided that this step is the best course of action.”

I get it: Not compatible.

The company recently lost its CTO, Joseph Essas, to OpenTable.

Verba had no comment when I contacted him.

Here’s the full Verba memo:

To the eHarmony Team:

I wanted to announce to you that I am leaving eHarmony Inc. The Company’s Board and I agreed upon this mutual separation on Friday. Our visions of the future of the business are not entirely aligned and we decided that this step is the best course of action. Dr. Neil Warren, eHarmony’s Chairman, has assumed the CEO role and will be outlining more details concerning the path forward very soon.

I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished in the time that I’ve been here. We have a site redesign in beta and improving every day; we are on our way to a new creative campaign scheduled to launch later this quarter; our mobile apps and development continue to evolve and capture more share of our users’ time; we continue to diversify our acquisition channels (mobile, social, digital video); and we’ve both welcomed several new executives to the company and promoted several from within the ranks.

This is a great team of people, driven by a belief in the mission laid out by Dr. Warren many years ago to reduce the divorce rate in America and create more love in the world. Our recent research studies have shown that we are succeeding at that and much more.

I have confidence in your abilities and future success. I wish you all the best and thank you for a great year.

Jeremy

PS. Going forward, I can be reached via FB or LinkedIn. I look forward to staying in touch.

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Another gadget you don’t really need. Will not work once you get it home. New model out in 4 weeks. Battery life is too short to be of any use.

— From the fact sheet for a fake product entitled Useless Plasticbox 1.2 (an actual empty plastic box) placed in L.A.-area Best Buy stores by an artist called Plastic Jesus