Jack Dorsey Steps Down As Twitter’s CEO

On Monday, November 29, 2021, Twitter’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and co-founder, Jack Dorsey, stepped down as CEO of the microblogging and social networking company. Dorsey co-founded Twitter in 2006 with Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass, and led the company through the turbulent years of Trump’s presidency, as well as increased regulatory requests from lawmakers worldwide.

In a tweet, Dorsey confirmed the report, saying, “There’s a lot of rhetoric about the necessity of a company being “founder-led.” “In the end, I believe it is overly rigid and a single point of failure,” says the author. I’ve worked hard to ensure that this company is able to break free from its founders.” “I want you to know that this was my decision and I own it,” he continued. “There aren’t many entrepreneurs that put their firm ahead of their ego,” I say confidently.”

Elliott Management had put pressure on Dorsey, who is also the CEO of payments business Square, in 2020, over fears that he had split himself too thin by overseeing both companies. Elliott released a statement in response to the news on Monday, stating that its collaboration with Jack and Twitter over the last few years has been fruitful. “We look forward to the next stage of Twitter’s journey,” said managing partner Jesse Cohn and senior portfolio manager Marc Steinberg. After meeting incoming Chairman Bret Taylor and incoming CEO Parag Agrawal, we are satisfied that they are the ideal leaders for Twitter at this critical juncture.

Dorsey will continue on Twitter’s board of directors until his term expires at the company’s 2022 annual meeting of stockholders, according to the company. With Dorsey’s resignation, Salesforce’s president and COO, Bret Taylor, was designated the new Chairman of the Board, following Patrick Pichette, who will remain on the Board and chair the Audit Committee. Dorsey will be succeeded by Parag Agrawal, who started Twitter as an engineer in 2011 and has been the company’s CTO since 2017. Parag will have to meet Twitter’s lofty internal targets.

The firm stated earlier this year that by the end of 2023, it hopes to have 315 million monetizable daily active users and to have more than doubled its annual income.

According to Dorsey, “The board went through a thorough process, weighing all options before unanimously appointing Parag. He’s been my first pick for a long time because of how well he knows the organization and its demands. Parag has been at the helm of every major decision that has aided in the turnaround of this organization.

He’s inquisitive, perceptive, logical, imaginative, demanding, self-aware, and humble. He is someone I learn from regularly because he leads with his heart and soul. My faith in him as our CEO is unwavering.

Parag has been with the company for over a decade and was in charge of artificial intelligence and machine learning strategies, as well as programs aimed at making tweets in users’ timelines more relevant to them. 

In a tweet, he also stated that he is committed to executing Twitter’s strategy and meeting the business’s “ambitious goals,” but that the firm will face challenges in how it executes its plans and delivers results.

In the aftermath of rumours that Jack Dorsey, the company’s CEO, was stepping down, Twitter’s stock price jumped 12.6% before the markets opened. Twitter’s stock price was $47.07 on Monday, but it jumped 12.6% to $53.01 before the market opened.

Since October 2020, Dorsey has been on the outs with the Nigerian government due to his role in the EndSARS protests. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime banned Twitter in June 2021, alleging “consistent usage of the site for actions that are capable of damaging Nigeria’s corporate existence.”

A Brief History Of Twitter’s New CEO

Parag Agrawal is an Indian-American technology executive. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a doctorate in computer science from Stanford University. Parag held key positions at Microsoft Research and Yahoo Research before joining Twitter.

Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s former CEO and co-founder, announced in December 2019 that Parag would lead Project Bluesky, “an independent team of open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media that would help better control abusive and misleading information on its platform.” While Dorsey is well-known for his interest in blockchain technology, bitcoin, and decentralization, Parag is interested in “web3”. Web 3.0 simply refers to the third generation of internet services for websites and applications that will focus on providing a data-driven and Semantic Web employing a machine-based understanding of data. Its goal is to make websites that are more intelligent, linked, and open.

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