Camera startup Lytro names Jason Rosenthal new CEO
The executive previously led Ning and will remain affiliated with his most recent employer, Silver Lake Partners.
- Shankland covered the tech industry for more than 25 years and was a science writer for five years before that. He has deep expertise in microprocessors, digital photography, computer hardware and software, internet standards, web technology, and more.
Lytro, a Silicon Valley startup making an unusual new light-field camera, said today Jason Rosenthal will take over as chief executive on April 15.
Rosenthal previously was an executive at Silver Lake Partners and CEO of social-networking start-up Ning. He also worked at AOL, Hewlett-Packard, Netscape, and OpsWare.
He'll replace interim CEO Charles Chi, who took over when founder Ren Ng stepped aside as CEO in 2012. Ng will remain executive chairman, the company said.
Lytro's light-field camera allows photographers to focus an image after the fact, but also reduces resolution and makes sharing photos less convenient than with traditional JPEGs. A boxy design with a tiny screen at one end, the camera captures the full light field of information, rather than focusing light on the plane of the image sensor as in traditional cameras. Image processing -- either in the camera or on a computer -- reconstructs the image.
In a statement, Rosenthal said:
Lytro has already made tremendous strides toward its vision of revolutionizing photography as we know it. The management team has assembled a talented organization of photography pioneers and product visionaries and I'm proud to be leading them as Lytro continues to help the world realize the vast creative potential of the light field and living pictures.