Editor's Note: The story has been updated with comments from Ronnie Gurion

Ronnie Gurion, a former Expedia manager who was named CEO of Bitwine earlier this month, has left the company after just three days on the job.

Gurion resigned from the Bellevue startup -- an online expert advice network --  because of the "gyrations" in the economy and the startup market, said Rob Monster, whose angel investment fund purchased a controlling stake in Israel-based Bitwine in June. This could be one of the shortest startup stints on record. 

Gurion joined Bitwine around the same time as Sequoia Capital's now famous "RIP: Good Times" slide deck, a presentation that woke up many venture capitalists and startups to the problems in the general economy.

The rapid descent of the market and the volatility around startups was a major factor in Gurion's decision to leave, said Monster. Gurion, who had served as director of business development at Expedia, also had planned to invest in Bitwine. But that is not happening now, Monster said.

Bitwine continues to operate and is still looking for a CEO, with Monster adding that if Gurion changed his mind he would be welcomed back. Gurion could not be reached this morning.

Meanwhile, Monster Venture Partners -- an angel investment fund with more 20 portfolio companies -- has started to retool its business for what Monster described as "nuclear blast" in the economy.  As part of that, Monster said he is reducing the amount of capital that he plans to offer startups. And he is switching more to an incubator role where startup companies operate in a lean manner without large management teams.

"We had to adjust our model to reflect the reality," said Monster, who before founding the investment fund served as CEO of Global Market Insite.

In the current climate, startup companies need to change their goals from the "promise of greatness" to just being good enough to survive until a time when the capital markets improve, he said.

That also may be the case for angel investors like Monster, who had planned to raise as much as $40 million for a new fund some time next year. Now, the investor in companies such as Alerts.com, Identity.net and Healthcare.com said he too is making changes to his model.

"We are a very adaptable organization," said Monster. He added that it is now the "perfect time" to deliver on the firm's overall strategy of buying relevant domain names and building companies around them.

UPDATE: In an interview today, Ronnie Gurion said, as a 15-year veteran of the technology industry, he was fully aware of the risks associated with joining an early-stage startup. Gurion said he left the company about a week and a half after joining out of concern that Bitwine wouldn't get the funding he previously believed it would receive.

"It was not due to the volatilty of the market," said Gurion, adding that he learned after joining the company that the staff in Israel was working on contract assignments. When he joined, Gurion said, he believed that they were full-time employees.

"There was a lack of clarity over the involvement of the Israeli development team," he said.

Monster responded in a follow-up interview that the Israeli staffers had been converted to contract employees about 90 days ago as part of the plan to make the company a U.S. entity.

Earlier this month, Monster hosted a meeting with executives of companies in his portfolio. At that meeting, he explained the difficult funding climate and told executives to "batten down the hatches" for rough times, he said. He also told them that funding might not be as easy to obtain.

But Monster said there is a committment to fund Bitwine with about $300,000 in new capital over the next two years, though he added it was never planned to come in one "lump sum."

Gurion, who is currently exploring other opportunities, said he was disappointed that he didn't get the opportunity to work with the Bitwine team.