Notch Steps Down; Jeb Leads Development

02 DECEMBER 2011: Notch posted on his tumblr page that Jens Bergensten ("Jeb") is taking over as lead developer, and Markus Persson ("Notch") is stepping down.
You can see the post at the link above or here.

According to this Minecraft Forum article , Jeb said:

Until January I will be the only developer on Minecraft, so things will have to be slow initially. But my absolute main priority now is to create a mod API, because there is no way in hell I will be able to add as much content as the whole internet can do. The game needs an API, so end users can obtain the mods without hassle. I'm not going to do it all by myself though. We have a new programmer beginning in January, and we are talking to existing mod API teams, such as Bukkit, Minecraft Forge, and Minecraft Coder Pack.

Hopefully, this will open up modding to beginners and make modding your client easier. Minecraft is a very community-oriented game, and this move (the new modding API) is very good for the game, the community, and mojang's popularity.