Dusseldorf Jack Dorsey, the controversial CEO and co-founder of the short message service Twitter, is leaving his post. The company announced on Monday. His successor is to be the chief technology officer Parag Agrawal will. The change is to take place with immediate effect. Dorsey is expected to remain on the company’s board of directors until next year’s annual general meeting.
The short message service’s share price soared more than 11 percent after Dorsey’s resignation, first reported by CNBC, before trading in Twitter shares was suspended.
“I have decided to leave Twitter because I believe that the company is ready to break away from its founders,” said Dorsey, according to the announcement. “I have great confidence in Parag as the CEO of Twitter. The company has made great progress in his work over the past ten years, ”Dorsey praised his designated successor. Agrawal said, “I look forward to building on all that we have achieved under Jack’s leadership.”
For several months there had been speculation that Dorsey might resign. Hedge fund and Twitter shareholder Elliott had tried several times to push Dorsey out of his role as CEO. Elliott founder Paul Singer had criticized Dorsey’s dual role as CEO of Twitter and the payment service provider Square, which he also founded, and urged him to quit one of his top positions.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
For comparison: Twitter is valued at around 40 billion dollars on the stock exchange. The financial services provider Square plays in a different league. The company has a market capitalization of around $ 100 billion.
On Sunday Dorsey had written on Twitter: “I love twitter.” The Twitter co-founder was CEO until 2008 before he was pushed out of this role. He returned to Twitter as boss in 2015 after former CEO Dick Costolo stepped down.
Controversial manager
The 45-year-old Dorsey is controversial in the technology scene. The US journalist Nick Bilton traced the platform’s first years in his book “Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship and Treason” and described Dorsey as a poor manager who did not have control of the company in the early years. Failed to cope with crises and communicated poorly with employees and his own board of directors.
Bilton wrote over the years on Twitter under Dorsey: “Many employees did what they wanted and where they wanted it – that is, if they wanted to do anything at all that had to do with their routine work.” Dorsey was not his job as CEO done justice. “Jack had no luck trying to tame her,” wrote Bilton. Instead of worrying about the difficult situation in his company, Dorsey attracted attention with extravagant appearances at parties.
In a personal farewell email to the workforce, the outgoing Twitter boss wrote: “I want you all to know that this was my decision and that I stand by it.” He continued: “There are not many founders who overlook their company set their own ego. I know that we will prove that this was the right step. “
A challenging task awaits the new CEO Agrawal. He will have to meet Twitter’s aggressive internal goals. The company said earlier this year it wanted to have around 315 million daily active users by the end of 2023 and at least double its annual revenue this year.
In addition to the change at the top of the company, Twitter is also getting a new chief controller: Bret Taylor, President and COO of the software company Salesforce, is taking over the post from Patrick Pichette, who will remain on the Supervisory Board for the time being.
Twitter had recently seen strong sales growth. Revenues rose 37 percent to $ 1.28 billion in the third quarter compared to the same period last year. However, Dorsey had to show a loss of $ 537 million for the past quarter.
The loss is compared to a profit of $ 29 million in the same quarter of the previous year. The main reason for the large loss was a payment of $ 766 million from Twitter to its investors. In 2014, the group is said to have misled its investors with exaggerated forecasts. The short message service emphasized that the payment was not an admission of guilt.
More: The Square boss is planning another attack on the banking world