Yet as many analysts see it, Mr. Westergrens departure was an inevitable result of the investment from Sirius XM, the satellite radio giant controlled by Liberty Media. Executives at those companies, particularly Gregory B. Maffei, Libertys chief, have made it clear that they admire Pandoras core advertising business but have little interest in the rest.
This is the door being opened wide for the Liberty-Sirius XM team to come in with a new agenda for Pandora, said Barton Crockett, a media analyst with FBR Capital Markets.
In its announcement on Tuesday, Pandora said that Naveen Chopra, its chief financial officer, would be interim chief executive while the company searches for a new leader, and that Jason Hirschhorn, a former executive at Myspace and MTV Networks who runs a popular news aggregator, had joined the board.
Shares in Pandora were flat on Tuesday, rising only 3 cents to close at $8.49. On Monday, they had jumped 2 percent after the technology news site Recode reported Sunday night that Mr. Westergren was preparing to leave.
The exit of Mr. Westergren, a former musician who has been internet radios most enthusiastic evangelist, is the most dramatic development in a tumultuous year for the company, full of management departures, a falling stock price and continual pressure from Wall Street to sell.
Mr. Westergren, who also left his position on the board, did not respond to messages seeking comment. But in a statement issued by Pandora, he said he was incredibly proud of the company we have built.
We invented a whole new way of enjoying and discovering music, Mr. Westergren added, and in doing so, forever changed the listening experience for millions.
Mr. Westergren was one of the founders of the company in 2000, when it was called Savage Beast Technologies and sold music recommendation services to businesses like Best Buy. He was chief executive of Savage Beast from 2002 to 2004.
Renamed Pandora Media in 2005, the company became by far the most popular internet radio service, using a proprietary music genome technology that analyzed the characteristics of songs its users liked, and fed them others like it.
One of the few digital music brands to become a household name, Pandora amassed 80 million regular users and built a substantial advertising business, generating more than $1 billion in sales last year.
But the company antagonized the music industry along the way, and was slow to adapt to the challenges posed by Spotify and Apple.
After taking over as chief executive in March 2016, Mr. Westergren tried to remake the service, striking licensing deals with record companies for a new subscription service, Pandora Premium, that let users listen to any song for $10 a month.
Investors were skeptical of those plans, and worried about all the cash Pandora was burning through.
In the third quarter of last year, for example, Pandoras new music deals contributed to a $93 million jump in its licensing costs, and by the end of 2016, the company logged a $343 million net loss, double its loss from the year before, according to filings.
The sale of Ticketfly was another bruising experience. Pandora bought the company, a fast-growing ticket provider for clubs and theaters, in late 2015 for $335 million, and this month sold it to Eventbrite, another ticketing start-up, for just $200 million.
When he took over last year, Mr. Westergren said repeatedly that Pandora was not for sale, despite strong pressure from activist investors and a sagging stock price; since the beginning of the year, its shares are down by a third. But a deal of some kind seemed inevitable.
Since Sirius XMs investment was announced on June 9, Pandoras board has faced a conflict between Mr. Westergrens expansive plans for the company and the wishes of its incoming directors. Recruiting a strong new chief executive would have been problematic with Mr. Westergren still on the board.
Tim stepped in to be C.E.O. at a critical time for the company, Timothy J. Leiweke, another board member, said in a statement, and was quickly able to reset relations with the major labels, launch our on-demand service, reconstitute the management team and refortify our balance sheet by securing an investment from Sirius XM.
Over the last year, there has been continual turnover among Pandoras executive ranks. Sara Clemens, the chief operating officer and a driving force behind its acquisition strategy, resigned in December. In April, just weeks after the company released Pandora Premium, its chief technology officer left.
On Tuesday, Pandora announced that Michael S. Herring, its president and former chief financial officer, and Nick Bartle, who had joined the company only nine months ago as chief marketing officer, were also leaving.
A Pandora spokeswoman also confirmed that the company would soon be exiting Australia and New Zealand, the only countries where it operated outside the United States.
With these changes, Pandora will have undergone a nearly complete overhaul of its management in a little more than a year. More moves are expected, although analysts are hoping that the latest changes, and some level of control from Sirius XM, will steady the company.
This is the calm after the storm, said Amy Yong, a media analyst at Macquarie Securities.
A version of this article appears in print on June 28, 2017, on Page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: Turmoil Continues at Pandora Media As C.E.O. Joins Management Exodus.
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Turmoil Continues at Pandora Media as Its Chief Executive Resigns - New York Times