Odeo has hit a tough patch recently, as founder Evan Williams (formerly co-creator of Blogger) openly admits. Today it emerged that Evan, Biz Stone and the other Odeo folks have acquired the company, buying back the share owned by the investors - Charles River Ventures, Mitch Capor, Ron Conway, Josh Kopelman and others. Evan has started a new company, Obvious Corp, which now owns the assets of Odeo and spin-off service Twitter. According to Valleywag, which broke the news, Williams didn't need the investment, but was scared not to take it. Obvious Corp, however, will continue to run both services.
In fact, the plan for Obvious seems well-suited to the current startup environment: the aim is to build experimental products quickly among small teams, since Evan now believes the market is crowded and hits-driven. They want to roll things out cheap and fast and play around to see what works. In short, Evan wants to have more fun, and the management buyout should help him achieve that.