[Mafana0]

No info about the current number of employees, but the article states that "in 1996, IMDb was managed by a group of 20 volunteers. IMDb became a company in 1996 and was sold to Amazon in 1998 He's now the Chief Executive of IMDb and his role is to oversee future strategy and make sure his creation stays true to its roots."

[jacquesm]

> his role is to oversee future strategy and make sure his creation stays true to its roots.

Which is why being bought out by Amazon is about as good as it gets. They usually find a good way to manage the post acquisition period, most other companies botch that completely.

[neworbit]

Not generally true in that era, though. Alexa and IMDB, yes. Junglee, Planetall/Shoptheweb, Exchange, Live Bid, Bibliofind, Accept, etc - mostly dead. Good list of Amazon acqs/investments at http://tctechcrunch.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/amazon.png

[robryan]

Depends how successful the sites were I guess, if IMDB started going backwards I'm sure it would have ended up the same as those properties.

I think having the founder still working there and not jumping ship as soon as some vesting period is over is a good advertisement for being acquired by amazon. Also it's still it's own site, could have easily been rolled into amazon in an attempt to push more DVD sales over the years.