New CEOs at MySpace and hi5 have Seattle connections

MySpace and hi5 this week tapped new CEOs, both of whom have connections to the Seattle technology industry.

Perhaps the more interesting of the two was the appointment of Bill Gossman as CEO of hi5, a San Francisco social networking company with more than 63 million unique visitors each month.

Gossman, an executive-in-residence at Mohr Davidow Ventures, one of the larger investors in hi5, previously served as CEO of Bellevue's AudienceScience.

Formerly known as Revenue Science, the behavioral targeting company is now led by Jeff Hirsch.

Gossman's appointment was overshadowed by news that MySpace had named Owen Van Natta as CEO. The 39-year-old executive previously worked in executive roles at Amazon.com and Facebook.

At Facebook, Van Natta helped negotiate Microsoft's $240 million investment in the social networking company. At Amazon, he was part of the founding team of Amazon's search engine A9.

Van Natta joined Facebook in 2005 after leading A9 and serving as vice president of worldwide business and corporate development at Amazon.

Interestingly, Van Natta replaces an executive with ties to Seattle. Outgoing MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe -- who co-founded the social networking powerhouse with Tom Anderson -- is a graduate of the University of Washington.

For the longest time, industry watchers complained that Seattle didn't have a stable of top-notch executive talent. Maybe that mindset is starting to change.

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