Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey has resigned today, posting a company-wide email to the social media platform. In the email Dorsey discusses his reasoning for leaving, noting that a company remaining under the leadership of its original founder is “severely limiting and a single point of failure.” He notes three reasons for now being the right time for him to leave the company—two around the company’s current leadership, followed by a general remark on his faith in the current team.
Firstly, he notes Parag Agrawal being in place at the company as Chief Technology Officer as of Nov. 2021, after being in charge of the decentralized social network protocol Project Bluesky since Dec. 2019. Dorsey described Agrawal as “curious, probing, rational, creative, demanding, self-aware, and humble.”
Secondly, Dorsey discusses his faith in Bret Taylor as chair of the board of directors. Taylor has been on the board since Jul. 5, 2016, and is also President and COO of Salesforce.com. He is also the co-creator of Google Maps. Dorsey said “[h]e understands entrepreneurship, taking risks, companies at massive scale, technology, product, and he’s an engineer.”
Lastly, Dorsey noted the “ambition and potential” within the company, and points-out that Agrawal started as an engineer at Twitter before being named CEO today. He believes his now-former employees “have the potential to change the course of this company for the better,” without noting why a change in course might be necessary. Dorsey is remaining on the board of directors “through [his] term (May-ish)” to help with transition, then leaving the board “to give Parag the space he needs to lead.”
While it’s a charming letter and getting out of the way is an admirable instinct to follow, there were, perhaps unsurprisingly, no notes in the resignation letter about the effect of Twitter on public discourse, or its use by right-wing politicians and activists in encouraging violence. He expressed neither pride nor despair at tweets being used in news reporting or getting due or undue credit for social protest movements. There is nothing about Fleets or Spaces.
Dorsey is not leaving amid a whirlwind caused by chaotic malfeasance and toxic workplace culture as can be seen in places like Riot Games, Ubisoft, Activision Blizzard, Apple, and, apparently, Sony PlayStation, so he’s got that going for them. But he also had nothing to say about whether Twitter, like Facebook, has done internal reporting that shows it has an outsized influence on the world.
In any case, Dorsey has said the company will have an all-hands meeting tomorrow morning, so hopefully something substantial trickles out of there.