Rob Rhinehart has taken to writing on his blog again. Recently he’s covered topics as diverse as why he’s voting for Kayne West, how the New York Times is killing news, a thought piece about the Jungle and ideas for Coke Cola.
I quite enjoy a lot of Rob’s writing. There are some solid ideas in there and let’s not forget that it was one of his blog posts that gave rise to Soylent itself, and then spawned the modern Complete Food as a category.
But is it irony or just bad luck that this same blog now appears to have led to him stepping down as the Chairman of the board?
CEO Demir Vangelov doesn’t go into a lot of detail (Full statement below) so we’ll have to guess which opinions Soylent aren’t happy with, but in a since removed reddit post his Kayne West piece was received extremely negatively – I’m not going to speculate – but presumably Rob remains Soylent’s majority shareholder and retains a lot of power regardless of title.
I want to share that Rob Rhinehart has stepped down as the Chairman of the Soylent Board of Directors.
I also want to clearly articulate that what Rob says on his personal platforms are not in any way related to the beliefs or stances of the company, our board or our employees. If you are interested in Soylent’s point of view please always refer to our company’s blogs and direct communication.
We are hard at work building a great company and focusing on our mission of bringing complete, sustainable nutrition to more people. Rob’s recent personal publicity has been a distraction from our core mission and our work. To this end, while Rob remains on the board, we wanted all of our supporters to know about this immediate change. We do not intend to speak more about it.
I want to thank our customers for their continued support and I look forward to bringing more great-tasting and innovative products to you.
Best,
Demir Vangelov
CEO