Sunday, October 31, 2010

Executive Change At Twitter

New York Times: Why Twitter’s C.E.O. Demoted Himself: for all its astonishing growth, Twitter has succeeded in spite of itself ...... I’ve screwed up in many, many, many ways in terms of managing people and product decisions and business ..... he excels at understanding what Internet users want and contemplating Twitter’s future, but isn’t a detail-oriented task manager.
I don't know much about Dick Costolo, except that he sold FeedBurner to Google like Evan Williams sold Blogger to Google. To Ev's credit, Blogger remains my favorite social media platform, more so than Facebook and Twitter. It is that sentiment that gave me the confidence to speak my mind here: Twitter Is Massively Complex.

Twitter has to ride the imagination wave of the mobile experience. If so far it has not done it speaks more to the unruliness of the horse called the mobile web and its exponential growth.
Image representing Blogger as depicted in Crun...Image via CrunchBase
Twitter might have been a hockey stick, but the mobile web has been a meteor shower. It has been a tsunami. It has come like a force of nature. Twitter has not been able to ride the wave fully, that perhaps is not the news. Twitter has survived, that is the news.

Twitter does not have the buzz today that it had in 2009. But it is in a much better shape as a business today than in 2009. Buzz and business are two different wavelengths.

I am fond of Twitter, what can I say.
New York Times: Why Twitter’s C.E.O. Demoted Himself: for all its astonishing growth, Twitter has succeeded in spite of itself ...... I’ve screwed up in many, many, many ways in terms of managing people and product decisions and business ..... he excels at understanding what Internet users want and contemplating Twitter’s future, but isn’t a detail-oriented task manager. ..... Costolo, meanwhile, is all about the details of making money and getting things done. .... a classic Silicon Valley type — the inspired, talented start-up guy with good ideas, but not the one to execute a sophisticated business strategy once things get rolling ..... For a long time, Twitter’s founders talked about it with awe, as if it had a life of its own and they were mere bystanders. ...... Mr. Williams and Mr. Dorsey are much quieter men whose only bond was their work. When Mr. Williams decided to join Twitter full time in the spring of 2008, his relationship with Mr. Dorsey quickly became strained as the two men competed for power. ..... By the end of 2008, Twitter’s growth was exploding — and things inside the company were beginning to break down. Mr. Williams suggested to Twitter’s board that it push Mr. Dorsey out. With the exception of Mr. Dorsey, the board unanimously agreed ...... The change shocked employees and further frayed relations between Mr. Dorsey and Mr. Williams. Mr. Dorsey declined to comment for this article, but people close to him say he felt betrayed by Mr. Williams. ...... “We were just hanging on by our fingernails to a rocket ship” .... The mistake I made was definitely underhiring ...... A video crew once walked in through Twitter’s unlocked front door without permission and began recording employees. ..... a chef prepares lunch for the 300 employees. ..... an information network, not a social tool ..... The business ended up being Mr. Williams’s first failure, and he couldn’t repay his father. ...... devoured the early issues of Wired magazine, and California loomed in his imagination ...... “I was bad at working for people” ........ Blogger, one of the first Web services that automated blog publishing. ..... Several people who once worked at the company said they didn’t make money on the sale because Mr. Williams had never submitted the paperwork needed to allocate stock options. Mr. Williams says that this group hadn’t worked at the company long enough for their stock options to vest. ........ “I don’t think he took care of the people who got him to where he was,” says Ms. Hourihan, who earned millions of dollars from the sale. “It was bitter, horrible and tough. He’s not C.E.O. material. It doesn’t play to his strengths. He’s a better inventor; he’s better at coming up with ideas.” ...... “When it was just me, I was happier, which I think is a sign of failure of working with people.” ..... He is neither a back-slapping former frat boy nor a socially awkward programmer most content behind a computer screen. .... He is at ease with himself, and convivial and dryly funny in small settings, but he tends to be quiet in large groups and is ambivalent about his newfound celebrity. Recently, with invitations to Davos and the Grammys, he traded in his uniform of jeans, a bird T-shirt and a hoodie for a suit — only to lose his luggage on the flight to Switzerland. ....... financiers asked Mr. Williams if he wanted to sell. He said he wanted to sleep on it, and the next day sent them a long e-mail about why he wanted Twitter to stay independent. ..... “Ev is very difficult to work with because he has a tough time making a final decision on products” ..... “Dick is hard-charging and very focused on urgency and executing now, and I tend to be very contemplative,” he says. “My weakness is probably taking too long to make a decision, and his is being too hasty.” ..... the “Dunbar number” — the maximum number of people, generally believed to be 150, with whom one person can have strong relationships


Image representing FeedBurner as depicted in C...Image via CrunchBase
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