Jack Dorsey, the former CEO and founder of Twitter, bows out and names a new, appointed CEO.
On November 29th, 2021, Jack Dorsey stepped down as CEO of Twitter. Dorsey, who also owns the popular retail payment app, Square, which is also undergoing changes, gave no reason as to why he decided to step down, simply stating that he believes Twitter remaining founder-led is limiting and that it’s time for Twitter to move away from that. Square will also take up more of his time as it acquired Jay Z’s Tidal for $297m in May, announced a $29B deal for ‘buy now, pay later’ in August, and planning to create Bitcoin mining hardware in October.
Instead, the board unanimously appointed CTO Parag Argawal, a former engineer, as the new CEO. Dorsey is staying until May, to help Parang transition into his new position, and encourages the move for his colleague by saying that Agrawal has “been behind every critical decision that helped turn this company around.” Bret Taylor, former Facebook CTO and incoming Salesforce CEO, is the new board chair. After the transition wraps up in May, Dorsey is leaving entirely, as he believes it’s important for Parang to have the room to lead on his own and believes that a company should “Be able to stand on its own, free from its founder’s influence or direction.”
Dorsey fittingly tweeted his letter of resignation and plan for the company going forward from his personal Twitter account. Overall, Dorsey feels that he chose his company over his ego, a choice that not many CEOs make.
He stated that “His one wish is that Twitter becomes the most transparent company in the world.”
He wrapped up his resignation letter by saying hi to his mom. Since Jack Dorsey became the CEO in 2015, shares for Twitter rose by 85%. He is confident in his new successor, whose good qualities he enumerates in his letter and it will be interesting to watch Twitter’s trajectory under their newly appointed CEO.
Nicole is a recent graduate (okay fine, a recent-ish graduate) of Texas State University-San Marcos where she received a BA in Psychology. When she's not doing freelance writing, she's doing freelance Public Relations. When she's not working, she's hanging out with dogs or her friends - in that order. Nicole watches way too much Netflix and is always quoting The Office. She has an obsession with true crime and sloths.
