Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers chief product officer William “Bing” Gordon, who has served on the Amazon board since 2003, when the Seattle company was little more than an online retailer, resigned from the board on Tuesday, according to a SEC filing released today.
It’s not unusual for venture capitalists to move on from their public board seats, focusing instead on earlier-stage companies. Even so, Amazon still claims one of its original venture backers on the board: Madrona Venture Group’s Tom Alberg of Seattle.
According to today’s SEC filing, Gordon — who previously served as CEO of Electronic Arts before joining KPCB in 2008 — will provide consulting services to Amazon for two years. He will remain a non-voting board observer. As part of the stock agreement, Gordon was granted a restricted stock unit award for 3,100 shares, vesting over two years.
We’ve reached out to Amazon for comment, and we’ll updated this post as we hear more. Amazon’s board now includes 10 members, including CEO Jeff Bezos.
UPDATE: An Amazon spokesman provided this statement to GeekWire: “We appreciate Bing’s many years of service as a director and look forward to working with him in this new role.” The spokesman declined to say whether they plan to fill Gordon’s spot on board, saying “we don’t discuss director nomination matters.”
