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Barney Pell is out as CEO at Powerset, the natural-language search engine. Pell will become CTO while the board begins a search for a new CEO. What's with the reshuffling? We're not sure, but a tipster tells us some C-level hanky-panky might have been involved.

Our tipster writes:

I heard this really strange thing from a Powerset employee regarding their "other" CEO who must have been fired recently, and that it was for inappropriate behavior between the two executives, and their inability to not get along, because one of them had slept with the other's wife? Can we get any validation on that?

Can we? People, you know what happens when you let this sort of information fester inside you? Bad things. Let it out. (Photo by David Sifry)