Perry Chen, Kickstarter CEO steps down from his role in the middle of employees’ Unionization efforts

It was just yesterday when the employees of Kickstarter, an American crowd-funding platform for creative projects, announced that they are forming a labor union called Kickstarter United, to secure more rights for the firm’s employees. Kickstarter could be the first major tech company comprising a union representation in the US.

Today, Perry Chen, CEO, Kickstarter announced that he is stepping down from his role as a CEO at Kickstarter. Chen stated in an open letter on Kickstarter’s blog that he's going to focus more on the high-level and long-term goals within the company in his role as Chairman of the board. Chen notes that Kickstarter has managed to accomplish a lot in just ten years. For instance, the firm has successfully funded nearly 160,000 projects from all over the world and have pledged to over $4.2 billion projects.

Aziz Hasan, head of Kickstarter’s Design & Product teams, will be now handling the daily responsibilities as an ‘Interim CEO’. The Kickstarter PBC board will be working with Aziz over the next weeks and months to make his role as an Interim CEO permanent.

BuzzFeed had reported earlier last year in April that after Chen returned back to the role of CEO in 2017, about 50 out of 120 Kickstarter employees had left the company. Out of these, seven of the eight members were a part of the firm’s executive team.

“Chen strongly exerted his will on the company — making sudden changes to planned-out Kickstarter features, scrapping project timelines at the last minute, forcing out highly respected employees, and trying to shake up office culture in ways that struck the rank and file as simply bizarre”, mentioned BuzzFeed.

Also, As first reported by the Verge, Kickstarter Union states that the firm overall has failed at manifesting its values within the workplace. The Union hopes to encourage “solidarity, transparency, and accountability; a seat at the table.”

“It’s been a true honor to serve as CEO for the first five years of this company and again for the last two...10 is just the beginning. And I cannot wait to see what the next 10 years of Kickstarter will bring”, states Chen.

You can check out Chen’s official letter here.