A difficult but fair farewell: here are the reasons that led Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, to leave the most important role within the social network
It’s time to say goodbye inside the Twitter headquarters. To resign and leave his chair, just a few hours ago, was the CEO of the company, Jack Dorsey, for 16 years at the helm of the company. What were the reasons that prompted the number 1 of the platform of chirps to say goodbye?
For a few days, rumors about the possible abandonment of Dorsey chased each other on the web and outside, but the confirmation, however, came from the person concerned through a tweet published on his profile on the social network. After a very long period as maximum charge of the social network, founded in 2006 together with Noah Glass, Biz Stone and Evan Williams, Dorsey has decided to leave in favor of Parag Agrawal, Chief Technology Officer of the company. The former CEO has a seat at the table of the Board of Directors, at least until the meeting with the shareholders scheduled for 2022 when he will also abandon the other position he held.
Twitter, why did Jack Dorsey say goodbye?
According to the first statements, Dorsey would not have left the CEO position for internal problems with the company. On the contrary, under his leadership Twitter has achieved many of its planned goals, starting with the economic ones. As confirmed by the same former boss, behind the decision there would be mainly a strong desire to face new challenges outside the company.
In the message, the former CEO stressed his opposition to see at the command post one of the co-founders of the company. It would be an extremely limiting choice, almost a recipe capable of leading straight to failure. The change at the helm, instead, would represent the right choice to give new lifeblood, for three fundamental reasons.
The first reason would be to look for the person who is about to climb the highest step of Twitter: Agrawal, as confirmed in the letter shown in the tweet of greetings of the former number 1, would have contributed to the main choices that have influenced the path of Twitter. A curious, creative and rational person, able to cover the role in an excellent way for Dorsey.
To this, then, we can add the second reason: the presence of Bret Taylor in the board of directors. His would be a key role within the group: not only the co-creator of Google Maps and Friendfeed would be endowed with great entrepreneurial skills, but – Dorsey recalled – he would be, above all, an engineer with a much more enlightened vision than the other members of the table on the purely technological aspects.
Third reason: users. For Dorsey, the third reason would be the huge audience of subscribers who will only benefit from the decisions that, in the future, will pass to Agrawal and Taylor. A sentimental motivation, but understandable given the close relationship between the company and one of its parents, who was able to bring it to the success that distinguishes it today.
Finally, behind Dorsey’s farewell there is also a fourth reason, unspoken: the former CEO of Twitter wants to focus on another of his companies, namely Square Inc. Square makes software and hardware solutions for digital payments via mobile devices, a sector that during the harshest months of the pandemic has become even more strategic for the global economy and will only grow further in the coming years. Dorsey has propped up Twitter by placing his loyalists in key positions, now he has more time to grow Square.
Twitter, a growing success
Of course, repeating Dorsey’s success will be difficult. Twitter’s latest economic data speak for themselves: the second quarter of 2021 saw the company achieve 74% economic growth compared to the same period of the previous year, going from 683 million to 1.19 billion dollars in a period when many companies had to deal with the difficulties linked to the pandemic. Not to mention advertising: 87% increase in earnings in one year, between 2020 and 2021.
What will Agrawal’s numbers be? Obviously it’s too early to do the math in the new CEO’s pocket, but the foundations for success are already there, as the goals for the next two years are already known and work is already underway to achieve them. Certainly the road is long but, with the support of Dorsey, even if from a more defiladed position, no goal will be impossible for the platform of twitter.