
Twitter, Elliott Strike Truce That Leaves CEO Dorsey in Place - JumpCrisscross
https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-elliott-strike-truce-that-leaves-ceo-dorsey-in-place-11583758773
======
PragmaticPulp
Elliott gets a board seat as part of the deal. The people leading the charge
to get rid of Jack Dorsey are more embedded on the inside now.

This looks like a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) for Jack Dorsey. Maybe
they're trying to steer him the desired direction. Or maybe they're just
trying to gather enough evidence to really oust him in 12 months.

~~~
brogrammernot
Sorta. This feels more like Jack/activist investor coming to common ground on
the direction of the company and also a proper succession plan for Dorsey to
walk away from Twitter.

He only owns 2% of the company, and at this point I’d imagine his only options
were to strike this truce & have control over how he exits as opposed to be
outed right now with a power vacuum causing Twitter to destabilize a bit.

I’d expect to see a succession plan where Jack is out within 12-18 months but
getting to help pick the next CEO.

~~~
dman
Any guesses of who they could pick? fwiw I think of all the networks Twitter
seems to be the one that actually delivers tangible social utility.

~~~
RandallBrown
That's interesting.

I get real utility out of Facebook that affects the way I live my day to day
life.

Twitter is _entertaining_ but if it stopped existing today, my life wouldn't
really change at all.

~~~
dman
I follow Indian and US news and politics on it - once you follow key
journalists, politicians, intellectuals and critics - Twitter does a pretty
job of surfacing the day to day concerns that show up in the country.

------
zaptheimpaler
Twitter is awesome because it doesn't operate under the growth for growths
sake mentality plaguing many other companies. It really is an incredible
public utility provided you liberally mute/block/unfollow all the petty
fighting and find good people.

Jack seems to understand that. I hope it doesn't devolve into a narrow
reveneue maximizing ad-filled trashfire, but thats probably what the hedge
fund will push for. I think it would be better off as a non-profit so they can
get the paperclip maximizers off their back. Heres hoping Jack wins this one.

~~~
smachiz
> Twitter is awesome because it doesn't operate under the growth for growths
> sake mentality plaguing many other companies.

Is that really true though? They've been a huge beneficiary of fake news,
astroturfing and bots. They've only relatively recently started to do
something resembling policing of these things.

~~~
gdulli
On Facebook you're bound to your friends/family/co-workers/etc, on Reddit
you're bound to the shallowest lowest common denominator content (front page)
or else endless spam and self-promotion (sort by new.)

Twitter is where you're meaningfully in control of who you follow and what you
see. That means it's on you to curate that, and many won't want to do that. I
was on Twitter for a while before I found the real niche and strategies that
made it my favorite place. Once I got it, the curation became an activity that
I enjoy, part of the loop, and it's rewarding when it's working well. If
you're seeing fake news regularly it's because you want to see it.

One key thing to do is avoid the algorithmic timeline, Twitter does force
bullshit down your throat to maximize engagement metrics, but where is that
not the norm anymore? My Twitter experience might crumble if I lose access to
the app that removes ads and suggested content from the timeline and keeps it
fully chronological.

~~~
rconti
Counterpoint: My friends/family/co-workers are not trolls.

Twitter is optimized for fake identities, and for virally spreading the most
sensationalistic content.

~~~
anthonypasq
yes, this if why you can choose who to follow...

~~~
rconti
I've tried to "curate" my experience many times over the years and it's never
proven worth it.

I'm settling on a conclusion that some folks care more about what those close
to them "in life" share, and others are more interested in what "outsiders"
share. Those outsiders may be renowned global experts in their field, or
athletes, or vapid influencers, or anything in between.

Regardless, I haven't been able to make it work.

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awinter-py
It's always been confusing to me what twitter is as a company -- it feels more
like a utility, or like the public service part of 20th century journalism
without the profit model

In many ways it's more important to society than FB & G (picking them as the 2
of the big 5 that are pure information plays), in that it hosts semi-public
conversations and helps experts stay informed

Would be interesting for some small country to create public utility versions
of twitter and linkedin and see what the effect is. Sucks for free speech but
great for experimental economics and welfare programs.

~~~
luckylion
> In many ways it's more important to society than FB & G (picking them as the
> 2 of the big 5 that are pure information plays), in that it hosts semi-
> public conversations and helps experts stay informed.

Out of all interactions on Twitter I've witnessed, _conversations_ comes to
mind the least to describe them. It's either people screaming at each other
which barely makes it past a scripted dialogue of replies, or it's somebody
saying ABC and all their fans saying "wow, so smart/brave/true". I don't see
any value in those, and they make up the super majority on twitter.

The "helping experts stay informed" part is true though, there are some small
communities where it's used to provide easy methods to contact others. That's
a small benefit compared to the giant damage it does to actual dialogue.

Twitter's default mode is a school yard brawl where you have plenty of
"followers" egging the fighters on. That's a utility if you want to destroy a
society, but important _to society_?

~~~
johannes1234321
The length limitation makes proper discussions hard. I can't even discuss the
Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz a German law
on labeling meat, [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinderkennzeichnungs-
_und_Ri...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinderkennzeichnungs-
_und_Rindfleischetikettierungs%C3%BCberwachungsaufgaben%C3%BCbertragungsgesetz))
in a tweet. Little space for more than a troll bit or a link.

~~~
teddyh
> _The length limitation makes proper discussions hard._

Twitter has the exact same problem, if not worse, than TV had since ever: In
order to be heard, your statement must fit in a soundbite, but nothing except
very simple statements can fit. This is why everything is either reinforcing
the status quo or rejecting something outright without qualification, leading
to apparent polarization and radicalization: The medium itself enforces it.

See also:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concision_(media_studies)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concision_\(media_studies\))

~~~
wyclif
You guys know about threading, right? In fact, the fastest-growing type of
tweet in terms of popularity is the 100-tweet extended thread.

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dodobirdlord
Using outside investment to buy back shares seems more than a little silly.
Seems like acknowledging that the investor made a mistake, since you have no
use for additional capital.

~~~
ISL
Using outside investment to buy back shares is a way to transfer ownership to
the outside investors, so long as the investors hold their shares.

~~~
dodobirdlord
Seems roundabout, when the investor could just buy the shares from their
current owners.

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ladyattis
Paul Singer is going to find that Twitter isn't as biased as he believed. If
anything, it's a wild west situation with respect to TOS violations and gray
areas wrt TOS. It's just pathetic that he doesn't want to accept that Twitter,
like Google, is trying to Disneyfy their product (making it universally
palatable). There's no real leftist bias beyond don't be a jerk (don't use the
n word, don't harass lgbt folks, and don't dox). If he thinks there's an
actual large scale bias against conservative then I got a bridge to sell him.

------
dang
The previous thread on this:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22451302](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22451302)

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bosswipe
Paul Singer, the CEO of Elliot, is extremely partisan and is a top donor to
the Republican Party. Seen in this light these moves have caused fear that
they are an attack on Twitter to turn it into a right-wing propaganda channel.

For example: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/29/paul-
sing...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/29/paul-singer-
elliott-management-twitter-jack-dorsey)

~~~
ta3728744
Twitter is already a leftist propaganda channel actively engaged in crushing
dissent. Perhaps it’s time to balance the scales.

~~~
Whatarethese
Thats weird because because both Twitter and Facebook were the things that got
Trump elected in the first place...

~~~
Mountain_Skies
What an incredibly low opinion you have of the average voter.

~~~
philjohn
Propaganda and fake news work. Otherwise Fox News wouldn't be a thing.

~~~
Mountain_Skies
If only we had someone like to you to decide who is too stupid to vote and
what information is safe for people to hear.

~~~
philjohn
Sadly that ended with the fairness doctrine in the 80's. I don't ask for a lot
- just no blatant lies or fake outrage designed to weaponise one side against
the other.

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paxys
I really thought Dorsey would use this opportunity to negotiate a nice exit
package. I can't see him (or really anyone) wanting to be Twitter CEO at this
point, especially since he also has that Square thing going on.

~~~
meowface
I don't agree, my guess is he probably wants to be Twitter CEO more than
anything else, including even more than being the Square CEO. That's a very
influential and potentially history-impacting position.

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NelsonMinar
And so Twitter looks set to enter its fifth full year without a full time CEO.

~~~
CoryAlexMartin
I'm not familiar with the situation. Is it different from Elon Musk dividing
his time between several companies (seemingly with success)?

~~~
jiveturkey
or Steve Jobs?

Yes, it is different. Dorsey is not Jobs nor Musk.

~~~
CoryAlexMartin
Certainly, very few people possess the brilliance of Jobs or Musk. But, I
doubt Twitter and Square demand the same sort of brilliance from a leader as
Tesla, Space X and Apple do/did. A quality that Musk and Jobs have that Dorsey
might, is their work ethic, which is far more common than true brilliance, and
probably more relevant to the challenge of being the CEO of multiple
companies.

Although, maybe being in charge of multiple companies diluted the efforts of
Jobs and Musk, but it was made up for by their brilliance and leadership
skills. An hour of effort from Dorsey might be equal in gains to five minutes
of effort by Musk. If that's the case, then maybe you're right.

------
somurzakov
this deal together with share buybacks will buy Jack some time to get rid of
his Twitter shares at good valuation and be prepared to leave Twitter job

~~~
aguyfromnb
Good to know that the guy worth $5 Billion will have time to bail financially
unscathed.

------
mhinton
Twitter has underperformed for a long time. It really needs someone in charge
that wants to drive the platform forward.

------
neonate
[https://archive.md/sgRt6](https://archive.md/sgRt6)

------
predictmktegirl
I'm not sure Jack is the CEO investors need, but I think he is the CEO that
society deserves.

------
wpietri
Hah! This is funny in all sorts of ways. Supposed "activist" investors
settling for a quick ransom. Twitter paying the ransom by taking money from
possibly worse people. Twitter paying $2 bn in ransom for _Jack_ , the guy who
is at best a half-time CEO, and who has presided over a mix of stagnation and
deck-chair rearrangement. And of course the online panic that this was going
to be a Trump-allied guy's way of dominating Twitter when it was just another
cash grab.

In some ways, Jack is the perfect CEO for Twitter. Twitter is a network-effect
business. People are on Twitter because people are on Twitter. The main thing
to do with those is to not fuck them up. Jack's distraction, disengagement,
and dithering are a perfect match for that. Every time something blows up into
an actual PR problem, he promises to listen and think and do better, without
every promising anything specific.

But for those of us who think Twitter could be something more, this is all
just depressing. They could have spent $2 billion on something useful. Heck,
they could have just given each active user $7. And they certainly could have
got a CEO with vision and some managerial competence.

~~~
_red
Is Jack too woke for you or not woke enough? Hard to make sense of your
criticisms...what do you envision twitter should be?

~~~
HeroOfAges
I don't think Jack is either woke or not woke enough. Twitter doesn't have a
COO, but I do believe whomever is making day-to-day decisions at Twitter has a
liberal bias. One need only look at the NY Post journalist that was recently
suspended for tweeting a picture of the house Carlos Maza listed as an address
while registering to vote, when nothing happened to Maza when he tweeted a
picture of James Carville's home.

~~~
spamizbad
It's incredibly amazing people think Twitter's problem is dumb partisan
bullshit related to the United States. Industrial-strength bikeshedding.

~~~
HeroOfAges
What would you say is a significant problem with Twitter? I'm interested in
what you think would make Twitter a better service for its users.

~~~
wpietri
I think one of Twitter's big mistakes is to go for a one-size-fits-all
product. For example, in shifting away from a time-based timeline to the
algorithmic timeline they've made it worse for advanced users in an effort to
juice user activity metrics among less engaged users. That could be fine if
they let other people build successful Twitter clients, but the put the kibosh
on that long ago. This makes them more ad dollars, but at the cost of treating
users like foie gras geese.

Another is the single model of discussion: tweets and replies in a single
global space. There's no way for individuals or groups to create other
contexts, so anybody attempting to have a sophisticated discussion needs to be
prepared for 101-level people blundering in, reading a single tweet, and
reacting ignorantly to it.

A third is its inability to handle longer blocks of text. The tweetstorm is as
close as they come. It's a medium I enjoy, but it's not good for everything.
In the same way one attaches images, one should be able to attach longer
blocks of text, and perhaps richer things, like HTML. That would take it from
being a micropublishing platform to an actual publishing platform.

They could also do massively better in terms of abuse prevention and
conversation quality. I'd love to be able to _pay_ for verification, so that
they'd check my claimed identity and mark me as me. For anonymous accounts,
I'd like ways for serious organizations to vouch for them. E.g., a human
rights org should be able to say, "Yes, this is actually a person on the
ground in Country X," so we can start telling real people from propaganda sock
puppets.

~~~
HeroOfAges
For the longest time, a one-size-fits all product was Twitter's strongest
value proposition. I disagree about the single model of discussion, and its
inability to handle longer blocks of text. To me, these are some of the most
significant ways for Twitter to distinguish itself as a social media platform.
I don't think Twitter will ever be a place you go to for a quality
conversation. It was never intended for that. Almost everything they did to
enhance their platform made it worse.

~~~
wpietri
I think they can keep that value proposition for users who want it, while
still serving other audiences. E.g., people already attach long blocks of text
to tweets. They just publish it somewhere that has pages set up for Twitter
Cards. Twitter could bring a lot of that in house without harming the core
experience at all.

Twitter wasn't intended for anything. It was an experiment that caught on.
Almost everything that distinguishes Twitter today (retweets, likes, replies,
posting links, even the at symbol) were all things users invented. Twitter
just observed what people were doing and added support. Most of what I'm
talking about is in that exact same tradition.

