Kaplan Steps Down As AdBrite CEO

AdBrite CEO Phil Kaplan is photographed on the roof of his office in a San Francisco file photo March 4, 2005. Kaplan, the bawdy funnyman behind a profane Web site that skewered casualties of the dot-com bust, has discovered mocking other executives is a lot easier than trying to run a rapidly expanding company. That realization prompted Kaplan to step down as chief executive of AdBrite, an online advertising agency that he started in late 2004. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File) (Jeff Chiu - AP)

SAN FRANCISCO -- Philip Kaplan, the bawdy joker behind a profane Web site that skewered casualties of the dot-com bust, found out mocking other executives is easier than trying to run a rapidly expanding company.

The realization prompted Kaplan to step down as chief executive of AdBrite, an online advertising agency he started in late 2004.

Kaplan, 30, resigned last week to make way for Ignacio "Iggy" Fanlo, a former investment banker who helped build and then sell Shopping.com to eBay Inc. for $634 million last year.

The change in command ended Kaplan's attempt to establish himself as a serious CEO after years of clowning around at F---edCompany.com, or FC _ a derisive Web site that he created to excoriate Internet startups as they flamed out in 2000 and 2001.

Kaplan began his makeover in late 2004 when he moved from New York to start AdBrite in the same San Francisco neighborhood that spawned so many of the dot-coms that became objects of his scorn. Now he is scrambling to stop people from interpreting AdBrite's management shake-up as a sign of trouble at his own dot-com.

Although AdBrite remains unprofitable, Kaplan says the startup is thriving. The agency now places ads on 16,000 Web sites, up from 3,500 early last year. Meanwhile, AdBrite's payroll has tripled to 45 employees, bolstered by quarterly revenues that have been increasing by 25 percent to 50 percent every three months, according to Kaplan.

Venture capitalists saw enough upside in AdBrite to invest $8 million in March.

"We have been growing very fast so we decided to bring in some awesome (management) experience," said Kaplan, who remains AdBrite's chairman and chief product officer.

In Kaplan's old rabble-rousing days, his Web site occasionally ravaged Shopping.com and even predicted the pricing comparison site's demise when it was still known as DealTime.

Fanlo, 45, remembers the unkind remarks but says he doesn't hold a grudge, describing the FC site as an "amusing diversion."