If you've considered yourself an avid Tumblr user at any point since the site's inception back in 2007, you've probably heard of the microblogging platform's CEO and founder, David Karp.

Karp has led Tumblr through a series of corporate acqusitions. Yahoo acquired the company back in 2013 for $1.1 billion, with Yahoo itself being sold off to Verizon more recently in 2017, resulting in Tumblr and Yahoo's AOL service being combined to form digital media organization Oath.

After roughly a decade of leading Tumblr, Karp has announced that he will be stepping down from his position as company CEO by the end of 2017, leaving his leadership responsibilities to Tumblr's COO, Jeff D'Onofrio. Oath has not stated whether or not this move is permanent or merely a temporary measure while the company looks for an official replacement for Karp.

"David Karp will depart Oath by the end of the year," Oath said in a statement to The Verge. "David founded Tumblr 10 years ago as a space for the world's creators, and we thank him for his commitment and passion driving the growth of the platform to almost 380 million blogs and over 155 billion posts."


In a letter to his colleagues, Karp claimed that his decision to leave Tumblr was not one he made lightly. Indeed, the choice only came after "months of reflection on [his] personal ambitions." Karp also claims that his decision comes "at no cost to [his] hopefulness for Tumblr's future or the impact [he] knows it can have."

It's unclear what the future might hold for David Karp in the years to come but it's probably safe to say that Tumblr itself will continue to be a fairly popular platform among writers, artists and other creators for quite some time.