Robert Sanders is moving on to Vitrue. He is a wicked smart technologist that knows how to build rock solid Internet apps.

Robert was the first hire that Charles Brewer made at MindSpring. He left there to join Cbeyond as CTO and architected their platform.

After he was finished with that I was fortunate enough to lure him to EarthLink, where he was the technical lead for the EarthLink Everywhere initiative. As we were architecting EarthLink’s 1.0 version of wireless Internet services Robert displayed an uncanny ability to listen to a vendor’s pitch and determine if there was a potential fit with our systems and strategy by asking them about two questions. The two perfectly right technical questions to ask. He constantly amazed me. There is no way EarthLink could have accomplished what it did without him on board.

Since I left EarthLink Robert has been spending his time working on rolling out their VoIP services. With those out the door he was ready for a new challenge.

MindSpring had an initial public offering.

Cbeyond did the same.

I hope to work Robert again one day in the future. For now, with the talent Reggie Bradford is bringing on board, Vitrue is going to be an interesting company to watch.