Gawker editor-in-chief A.J. Daulerio is leaving the site and reporter John Cook will replace him, Cook told TheWrap on Thursday.

Daulerio, who started at Gawker Media's sports site Deadspin, oversaw the network's flagship publication through a period of record growth.

"A.J.'s tenure at Gawker has been much like him: bold, infuriating, unpredictable... and often brilliant," the site's founder Nick Denton said in a staff memo, obtained by New York magazine [5]. "I mean, I really don't fully understand: AJ breaks all the usual rules of orthodox management and has still been the most successful editor of Gawker.com."

Cook (pictured left) has long been one of the media gossip site's most doggedly blunt writers and reporters. In August, he published [6] a trove of hundreds of internal memos from Bain Capital, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's former private equity firm.

"John Cook is the most experienced reporter on the team, a surprisingly powerful opinion writer and a gossip of the most refined kind," Denton wrote. "He has natural authority."

It was not immediately clear when the management changes would take place.