What followed was a controversial period The Washington PostWill Lewis is stepping down this week after mass layoffs. From 2017 to 2022, former Tumblr CEO Jeff D’Ofrio will step on as acting CEO and publisher. D’Onofrio has been CFO in the post since June of last year, meaning he’s had a front-row seat to Jeff Bezos’ last nine months winding down the once storied paper.
D’Onofrio’s resume doesn’t include extensive experience in traditional news media, nor many success stories. He was briefly the general manager of Yahoo News while it was still a Verizon property, before turning his attention entirely to Tumblr. Under his leadership, Tumblr tried to clean up its image by banning adult content, but saw its traffic drop by 30 percent. Yahoo bought Tumblr in 2013 for $1.1 billion. As of 2019, it was reportedly sold to Automate, the owner of WordPress, for less than $3 million.
