Also on the RTFA topic: "The Canonical founder is cutting numbers after an external assessment of his company by potential new financial backers found overstaf

Also on the RTFA topic: "The Canonical founder is cutting numbers after an external assessment of his company by potential new financial backers found overstaffing and that projects lacked focus." It may not even have much to do with Mark. What it looks like to me is that they saw the writing on the wall and knew this external assessment would lead to changes, and took that opportunity to execute a CEO switch plan. The reason behind that switch is perhaps seen above.