BitTorrent Employees Quit after Tron’s Acquisition

| Publish date: 08/22/2018
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BitTorrent has seen an exodus of employees after Justin Sun, founder of the controversial Tron (TRX) Foundation, acquired the well-known peer-to-peer networking platform in June this year. Among them is the inventor of the project, Bram Cohen.

The Exodus

Sources with direct knowledge about the matter have stated that this exodus is directly related to concerns about this acquisition and the direction that the Tron leadership is proposing for BitTorrent.

Cohen, the inventor who created the BitTorrent protocol in 2001 and then founded the company BitTorrent Inc. in 2004, was a lot more vocal in his disapproval of this move. He publically cut ties with the company, stating he would have no involvement with Tron.

Besides Cohen, there are at least two other executives at leadership levels who have left the company, with more expected to follow. Other senior level employees, such as the CEO, CFO, Chief Product Officer as well as the Chief Revenue Officer need to complete their 18-month lock-in contract, after which it is rumored that they too will leave.

Concerns with Tron

When Sun bought BitTorrent for $120 million, there was speculation that he was planning to leverage the company’s extensive network of more than 100 million users for the Tron project. Others, however, postulated that he had acquired the peer-to-peer network to give more credibility to his controversial project.

According to a Tron spokesperson, the project is committed to BitTorrent’s users as well as product. The spokesperson stated that since the acquisition, the company has been growing rapidly and is focusing on its vision of a decentralized future.

However, according to the employees of BitTorrent, it is the rapid expansion that has them worried. Since the acquisition, at least 30 new positions have opened up according to LinkedIn, ranging from recruiters to software engineers.

BitTorrent employees fear that this massive growth is going to hurt their company’s culture, which, according to sources was much more relaxed before the takeover by Tron.

These sources also stated that there is growing unease about Tron’s methods with regard to marketing and the message it is sending, especially about the project’s still nascent technology.

Additionally, BitTorrent employees are also reportedly uncomfortable about how the node elections for the new Tron Blockchain have taken place. Out of the 27 elected nodes, Sun himself controls one directly and another four under Tron, though under different names (uTorrent, BitTorrent, Raybo and Peiwo).

The caveat to all this is that this not the first time that BitTorrent has seen employee shakeups. The company has seen multiple exits in the last few years, with the latest being in 2015, when 40 employees were cut during a business reorganization.

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