
Twitter Names Jack Dorsey Chief Executive - jvrossb
http://nytimes.com/2015/10/06/technology/twitter-names-jack-dorsey-chief-executive.html
======
ar7hur
I still think it's impossible to run two companies that both require so much
attention, given their stage.

Yes Jobs had Apple and Pixar, and Musk has Tesla and SpaceX. But both Pixar
and SpaceX don't really require day-to-day CEO attention, they follow long
term plans (movies, rockets). That's really different from Square and Twitter,
which are both, in their own ways, in a kind of trouble.

I'd love to be proven wrong though -- so good luck, Jack!

~~~
seiji
Musk lives in LA and takes his private jet up to San Jose every week to work
at Tesla (then back to LA to work at SpaceX).

If anything, Musk has two full time jobs (priorities: 1. SpaceX; 2. Tesla; 3.
everything else) and actually does 80-100 hours per week of work. He's not out
creating vanity designer clothing lines in his spare time.

You can't create world class products or companies while maintaing a silly
"because i'm so special i'll only work 6 hours a day, 4 days a week, 1 week a
month" mindset.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Is there any reason that Musk couldn't colocate SpaceX and Tesla in Freemont
instead of SpaceX being located in Hawthorne? What's the benefit of SpaceX
being in the LA area?

~~~
derrekl
Los Angeles has a very large aerospace industry and long history in it.
Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and SpaceX all have a
large presence in Los Angeles's South Bay. It's not as large as it was during
the "cold war" but a lot of skilled employees still live in the area.

~~~
hoorayimhelping
JPL as well.

------
inthewoods
I keep wondering if this is going to be like Marissa Mayer joining Yahoo -
much fanfare, some movement, but at the end of the day she's been unable to
significantly move the needle. I just wonder if Twitter fundamentally isn't as
scalable an idea/product as Facebook et al. It's obviously Jack's job to make
it that - but what if the basic form of Twitter just isn't as compelling, no
matter how you change it or dress it up?

~~~
killwhitey
Then his job is find something else for Twitter to make. Facebook has launched
a lot of experimental apps like Paper, Rooms, Slingshot, Messenger. And they
bought Instagram which is very successful. Under Costolo Twitter bought vine
and periscope, but they haven't tried to experiment with new app ideas
internally.

~~~
hockley
If they went back to their roots as a messaging API for other apps, they would
not have to build new apps. Become the messaging backbone for the Internet.
That's plenty of scale to go after.

~~~
untog
> Become the messaging backbone for the Internet. That's plenty of scale to go
> after.

Where's the money in that, though?

~~~
sjg007
In the data. Advertising, etc..

------
uptown
"Twitter Feels Compelled to Point Out That Twitter CEO Is a Full-Time Job"

[https://recode.net/2015/06/22/twitter-feels-compelled-to-
poi...](https://recode.net/2015/06/22/twitter-feels-compelled-to-point-out-
that-twitter-ceo-is-a-full-time-job/)

~~~
mikeryan
I'm not a huge fan of the CEO of two companies thing, but Jack has been
interim CEO for 3 months. At least if they changed their position on this
they've got the evidence that he can handle both roles.

------
codingdave
Twitter does not need to gain new users - it needs to reactivate old users.
The statistic I cannot get past is that they have lost one billion users. That
is a much different problem than most companies are dealing with.

~~~
taytus
I honestly wonder how many of twitter's accounts are fake accounts, it seems
that spam is a huge problem there.

~~~
uptown
No idea. But I'd throw $100 their way to buy an account that's been dormant
for six years.

~~~
slayed0
why?

~~~
softawre
Imagine you have to write an algorithm to determine twitter spam. Would it
include accountCreatedDate?

~~~
minimaxir
The algorithm would probably contain a dummy variable representing
isYoungerThanXDays where X is the median number of time it takes to create a
new account after it has been banned.

I doubt accounts that are Y days old vs. Z years old have different
probabilities of being spammers.

------
nreece
Here's his announcement on Twitter, among other details:
[https://twitter.com/jack/status/651003190628872192](https://twitter.com/jack/status/651003190628872192)

~~~
code4tee
Totally unreadable. This sums up a lot of what's wrong with Twitter. If even
the CEO struggles to communicate effectively using the platform then...

~~~
criddell
Dave Winer mocked up how a fat tweet could look and I think he has it right:

[http://scripting.com/2015/10/02/whatWouldAFatTweetLookLike.h...](http://scripting.com/2015/10/02/whatWouldAFatTweetLookLike.html)

Obviously, they've thought of this internally too. I wonder what the point of
the 140 character limit is today (I think it made sense originally).

~~~
catshirt
"see more" link? groundbreaking stuff. someone get Twitter on the line!

i know Dave deserves respect but if i was even a janitor at Twitter this post
would piss me off.

~~~
kibibu
What made me giggle was:

> that doesn't force you to click a link to see the rest

(includes a link you click to see the rest)

~~~
nacs
I thought I was missing some fancy rollover-to-show and tried to get the rest
to show without clicking the "Read more" link.

------
ilamont
_“It’s exhilarating for him,” one long-time confidante said. “He draws energy
from how to think about both companies.”

Whether by coincidence or design, Dorsey’s comeback closely resembles the
Steve Jobs Narrative — a modern myth Silicon Valley entrepreneurs hold up as a
map to absolution._ (1)

I'm going with "by design." His ego risks the futures of both companies,
unfortunately. Surprised the Twitter board caved on allowing a part-time CEO.

1\. [http://recode.net/2015/10/02/why-jack-dorsey-is-ready-to-
sav...](http://recode.net/2015/10/02/why-jack-dorsey-is-ready-to-save-
twitter/)

------
vit05
I hope Jack realizes that Twitter is not a great tool to chat with friends /
neighborhood / family, but an incredible tool to reach people who are away
from you, social and geographical.

They need to focus on how easy it is to approach a movie star, your favorite
player and musician you like. How easy it is to show that you like a brand or
you love a new TV show. And talk about some major events that are happening
around you.

For people who have no idea what it is, they just see it as a tool to talk to
someone. And most of the time, you do not have any feedback on what you wrote.
In fact, you may not have any idea how many people have read what you have
written.

So I think if they focused on showing how Twitter is great for expanding the
boundaries of what you want to talk and make easy to see feedback from people
about what you have spoken, they can attract more people.

------
Vecrios
Chris Sacca would sleep very soundly tonight.

Jokes aside, I think Jack is the man for the job. He has proven capable in
square. I hope he does the same with Twitter. The company needs to take
advantages of the huge market share it has.

~~~
jgalt212
I disagree. He's proven capable as a fundraiser at Square. Square is far from
a success, thus far. That being said, I'm not sure anyone could have made
Square a success from the P&L perspective--the payments space is just damn
crowded.

------
antiffan
Slightly off-topic, but I recently interviewed at Square, and I also have some
long-time contacts there. I can honestly say they have some of the most
brilliant engineering minds I have encountered working there. Whether it's a
trickle-down effect from Dorsey or otherwise, they have succeeded in
recruiting and retaining many extremely talented individuals.

I am curious if anyone has recent anecdotes in regards to the engineering
talent at Twitter (aside from the talent that came in with Periscope).

~~~
sulam
The quality of the Twitter engineering team is very high. This is why people
are poaching them hard right now.

------
harrygold
Twitter has incredible value as a tool to break realtime news and events. The
problem is, it buried in a veneer of fruitless and redundant tweets that
nobody wants to dig through. If they can figure out how to surface the value
'there's gold in them hills!'

------
yuhong
From
[https://twitter.com/SJosephBurns/status/640698530038943748](https://twitter.com/SJosephBurns/status/640698530038943748):

"Twitter needs a CEO who is an @elonmusk with the Street and a @pmarca in the
tweets. - @zerobeta"

------
jackgavigan
I can't see this working out. Dorsey probably is the best candidate for CEO of
Twitter, and I think there are some very low-hanging fruit to pick when it
comes to solving Twitter's product issues (I disagree with Startup L Jackson -
Twitter's product is _not_ fucking fine). The market reaction has been
positive - TWTR opened up 3.15% just now.

However, Square is a different story altogether. Square Wallet was a damp
squib, and Square's facing competition both from established players like
Intuit and more recent entrants to the market, like iZettle. Leading Square
and bringing it to market seems like a full-time job to me, and I wouldn't be
surprised if it's IPO valuation takes a hit because it lacks a full-time CEO.

~~~
ryandetzel
I have friends at Square and they seem to think it's great. From what they've
said the last few months have been better for them as well with Jack as
interim CEO of Twitter. Maybe he needs this to be really driven? Time will
tell but I think you're right, it won't hurt Twitter as much as it might hurt
Square.

~~~
jackgavigan
_> From what they've said the last few months have been better for them as
well with Jack as interim CEO of Twitter._

That reads like they think it's good that he's not spending as much time
focusing on Square! :-)

------
sjg007
Stay tuned for twitter square integration. Buy with twitter should go through
square.

------
fitzwatermellow
Congrats, @jack

Would love to see twtr become a platform for a myriad of third-party apps.
Wouldn't it be great to place a market order by messaging @bats "buy $TWTR
10,000 30.00". Or order a limo with @uber "2 people in one hour to jfk
airport"?

~~~
sjclemmy
I agree - Twitter is the de facto messaging platform. Taking the idea a bit
further, Twitter could be used instead of SQS and other messaging solutions /
protocols. That'd be pretty cool. Twitter could be the way the IoT communicate
with their AI overlords.

~~~
dagw
_Twitter is the de facto messaging platform._

Only in your little corner of the world. I honestly don't know a single person
who uses twitter on a day to day basis.

~~~
parasubvert
And I know hundreds.

Twitter is so common in tech industry circles - so many announcements ,
debates, and moments happen there weekly that I would think it's essential if
you care about that stuff.

Truth is there is no canonical place to get the pulse of what's going on in
the tech world: each of Reddit, HN, Twitter, or various aggregation sites have
their filter and regulars. But Twitter seems to have the widest net.

------
samfisher83
I think using twitter as a platform for ordering things etc. would be
something he could do to make money. They should open it up to developers and
charge them for cool apps.

~~~
tscosj
Imagine, you are famous man! Orders are bad idea, here's why: to send for 1m
subscribers that you are going to sell your pants from 1998 tour sounds
interesting, but you do have just one pair of pant to sell.

------
rch
Who had the most significant role in getting Twitter results prominent
placement in Google desktop results? That seems like a mutually beneficial
development.

~~~
seiji
Google _used_ to have twitter results a long time ago. Then Google got a
little pissy and decided they wanted to be The Only Social On The Internet and
killed Twitter priority indexing (e.g. receiving the firehose). It was
probably the most ineffectual attempted flexing of monopoly power in the
history of monopoly abuse.

Now that Google realized they can't be good at everything (really, are they
good at much besides a few focused things?), they're open to integration and
collaboration on their not-so-competitive-advantages again.

~~~
rch
Noted, but I thought there was some posturing on Twitter's side regarding
terms and pricing for firehose access as well.

------
monochromatic
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10305855](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10305855)

~~~
jordanmessina
From the ReCode article: _" Twitter and Square both declined to comment."_

Now it's official

------
tscosj
What I don't understand is "to scale" part of an article. If you cannot sell
shit to 225M people, how you gonna sell that for 1B?

------
NH_2
I think this will be good for Twitter. Jack will be able to make big identity
and design decisions over the next few years with less pushback from the
employees and users than any non-founder CEO. He's already begun by declaring
that tweets will extend beyond 140 chars, and the response has been
apprehension instead of outright rejection. And for Twitter to remain
competitive with Facebook, even as Facebook builds Notes and live-streaming
video to cater journalists, Twitter is going to need to make many of these
decisions.

------
supergirl
when twitter finally pops everybody will see the bubble. or maybe uber pops
first

------
piratebroadcast
Twitter should buy Slack and own the workplace communications market.

------
bru_
People are worried that Jack will be too busy between Twitter and Square, but
what they don't know is that the dude's been completely spaced out for the
last 4 years, making the same motivational presentation about his Dad's pizza
shop to anyone that will listen. Nobody at Twitter talks to Jack anymore, even
the most Senior people.

~~~
SonicSoul
There was a great article a while back [on founding and rise of Twitter and
Dorsey's bio] that did not paint him in a good light: "All is fair in love and
Twitter" [0]

 _As one former Twitter employee has said, “The greatest product Jack Dorsey
ever made was Jack Dorsey.”_

[0] [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/magazine/all-is-fair-in-
lo...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/magazine/all-is-fair-in-love-and-
twitter.html)

~~~
ojbyrne
Which is actually an excerpt from a book by the same author:
[http://smile.amazon.com/Hatching-Twitter-Story-Friendship-
Be...](http://smile.amazon.com/Hatching-Twitter-Story-Friendship-
Betrayal/dp/1591847087)

------
curiousjorge
What if you created a website that no matter how hard you try, you can never
make enough money to justify it's insane valuation? You hire the guy that
created it. If that fails years down the road, hire a blonde.

~~~
tscosj
Sometimes the blonde is the only choice to make a decision, because "try hard"
isn't universal truth for every single mediums.

Chaikovsky is a great musician/composer/genius, but people prefer M. Cyrus
obviously!

------
kylebgorman
I'm short Twitter. The fact of the matter is it that Twitter should never have
become a multibillion-dollar company. There is no barrier to entry into this
space---any competent web developer could make a non-scaling Twitter in an
afternoon---except network effects, and those have proved weak due to poor
user experience, particularly for new users.

Twitter should have treated itself like a utility, and focused less on the
online advertising race-to-the-bottom that it is sure to lose due to the
aforementioned poor user experience and negative sentiment about the
platform's future; this announcement is only going to continue to contribute
to poor impressions.

The other monetization directions they have played around with---namely
selling access to researchers and advertisers, and certifying identities of
accounts for celebrities and brands---are a much better fit for the platform,
and would have sustained a fast-moving company of 50 hotshot engineers. But
the constant pressure to get bigger and bigger has served Twitter poorly. I'm
sad to say that I think it will be a ghost town in a few years.

~~~
paulpauper
lol if it's so easy, I implore you to create a Twitter competitor... and to
make your challenge easier, instead of it being worth $20 billion, we'll lower
the bar to, say, $150 million. It's already been done..every major web 2.0
success has many clones that all tried but failed to gain the necessary
momentum and marketshare to become as successful as Twitter or Dropbox, for
example. Even Evernote, despite all the attention and funding it has gotten,
is stuck in the ruts. Yes, the coding part can be replicated, but getting the
users and traction is the hardest part.

~~~
richmarr
kylebgorman posted that comment 2 hours ago, he must be half way done building
his Twitter-but-better by now. I'm on the edge of my seat, I can tell you.

------
kbenson
I first read this as "Twitter names Jack Donaghy Chief Executive" and thought
I was in for a good laugh. Now I'm disappointed. :/

Edit: To be clear, I thought Twitter was just expressing a good sense of
humor, and I was disappointed in that I was expecting something humorous but
didn't find that.

