Canopy is the privacy-respecting recommendations startup founded by Brian Whitman, previously of machine-learning startup The Echo Nest and then Spotify, after the latter bought the former in 2014.
Matthew Ogle was the product manager at Spotify who launched the Discover Weekly playlist, as well as other algo-personalised products like Daily Mix, before leaving for a job at Instagram in 2017. Yet back in 2011-12, Ogle was head of independent products at… The Echo Nest. Which makes today’s news that he’s joining Canopy a reunion, of sorts.
Ogle will be head of consumer products at Canopy. He’s one of two new high-profile hires for the startup, which is developing technology to recommend music, places and articles to people without storing or analysing their personal data on its own servers.
Bassey Etim is the other new arrival: the former community desk editor at the New York Times will “lead development of the voice of Canopy’s recommendation architecture” to “provide a human context and voice to our content recommendations”. For more on what the company is planning, read this recent blog post by its head of product strategy Annika Goldman – another former Spotify exec.
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