Two months after taking over as CEO, Owen Van Natta is laying off 30 percent of MySpace employees. His outlook remains bleak; when was the last time you heard a CEO call his company "bloated" in a press release?

More brutal honesty from the official statement (emphasis added):

"MySpace grew too big considering the realities of today's marketplace," said Jonathan Miller, News Corporation's chief executive of Digital Media... "I believe this restructuring will help MySpace operate much more effectively both structurally and financially moving forward. I am confident in MySpace's next phase under the leadership of Owen and his team."

The sort of talk may rattle employees, but it should hearten investors: without this sort of sober and honest thinking, Van Natta (pictured) doesn't even have a prayer of turning around his social network to surpass his nemesis and former boss Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook.

(Pic: Dan Farber)