Chicks fell out of the nest: why did 40% of top managers simultaneously leave Twitter?

Source: Business Insider

The state of the American company Twitter has undergone major changes. Five high-level executives left the company at once. First, Senior Vice President of Technology and Engineering Alex Roetter (Alex Roetter), Senior Vice President of Product Kevin Weil (Kevin Weil), head of the media department Katie Stanton (Katie Stanton) and Vice President of HR Brian Skiper () Brian Schipper). Then it became known about another care.

According to the CEO of the social network Jack Dorsey, the current director of production (COO) of the company Adam Bain will take on the responsibilities of Waile, Stanton and Skipper. Technical Director (CTO) Adam Messinger (Adam Messinger) Dorsey gave the task to combine several divisions (including technical, followed by Roetter) on product development into one; In this Messingeru promises to help himself Dorsey.
')
It turns out that 40% of top managers left the company, who were directly involved in the management of Twitter and largely determined the fate of the company.

According to The Verge, several other Twitter employees have also announced their retirement. Among them - the head of the project Vine (platform for recording 6-second video) Jason Toff (Jason Toff). He decided to return to Google to work in the field of virtual reality.

In his message, Jack Dorsey emphasizes that each of the departed in advance expressed a desire to leave the company and retire "voluntarily." Allegedly, they all decided to take up their projects, urgent matters or personal life. However, it is worth noting that the four departed employees worked for the team of Dick Costolo, the former CEO of Twitter.

July 1, 2015 Dick Costolo was forced to withdraw from the position of general director of Twitter. Acting CEO was appointed co-founder of the company, Jack Dorsey. Despite leaving the post, Kostolo is still present on the board of directors. At the end of May 2015, he was sure that he would remain as CEO at least until the end of the year.

Experts of the Wall Street Journal explained the premature withdrawal by the fact that Twitter investors were unhappy with the pace of development of the service. And the company's management forced Kostolo's care, being under pressure from investors.

When Costolo Twitter shares from January 2014 to January 22, 2016 fell by 74.2% (from $ 69 to $ 17.84). In August, "Megamind" wrote that the price per share of the company for the first time dropped below the 2013 level.

Prior to this, the media reported on the company's problems with an increase in the number of users. This problem is still the most important and most serious. The number of active users, as of June 30, reached 316 million people. Thus, the increase in users was 2.6%, which was the worst dynamic since the company's IPO in 2013. Previously, the number of active Twitter users increased by 15% every year.

A special committee was formed to search for a new CEO. The commission worked well and eventually left Jack Dorsey in the position, despite the fact that he is also the founder and CEO of the Squre processing system.

Some shareholders of the company began to stand against Jack Dorsey's candidacy. For example, Saudi prince Al-Walid ibn Talal, who is an early investor in the social network, did not support the Jack Dorsey nominee. Al-Walid Ibn Talal believes that Twitter needs a leader who has a lot of marketing experience. At the same time, the prince called the involvement of new users a priority for the work of the new CEO.

According to the interim head of the company, Jack Dorsey, initiatives to create new products have not yet had a significant impact on the growth of the audience. Megamind also wrote that from summer 2014 to summer 2015, Twitter lost about 450 employees.

In October, Jack Dorsey announced that the company was once again waiting for large-scale staff reductions. He explained this by the need to restructure the business.

Whether there is a link between the current layoffs of top managers and the behavior of shareholders who opposed the appointment of Dorsey as Twitter CEO in the summer is unknown.

“The life cycle of a company like Twitter is very small. Now the functioning of the company is maintained artificially, as in the life support apparatus. It’s impossible to fix it, the company must completely change, ”The Wall Street Journal quotes Trip Equator analyst Global Equities Research.