
Twitter Is Betting Everything on Jack Dorsey - pmcpinto
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/twitter-is-betting-everything-on-jack-dorsey
======
simonswords82
Twitter's product is broken in more ways than I care to recount. End users and
developers are constantly complaining about it - and they're the power users
who see the value in it! Everybody else is "meh" about Twitter despite the
potential.

Add Jack in to that mix, a guy who who has a lot of passion and intelligence
but is split across Square and Walt Disney and I have to say the answer is
'no', betting on him to single handedly save Twitter is a bad bet.

Twitter is doomed. I get that shareholders want to see the value they were
promised but short of a miracle I don't see a resurgence. All the trendy
people have already moved off of Twitter to FB, Insta or SnapChat (and I'm
sure there are others I'm not cool enough to use).

This Google Trend graph tells the story in pictures:
[https://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F0b2334%2C%2...](https://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F0b2334%2C%20%2Fm%2F0289n8t%2C%20%2Fm%2F0glpjll%2C%20%2Fm%2F0nbtf_n&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT-1)

Note that I had to leave FB out because it has ridiculous numbers that make
the other values in the chart almost meaningless.

Edit: Square not Stripe

~~~
wslh
In my microcosmos I am also being followed by a lot of bots and cyborgs (those
ones who have ten of thousands of followers and are following other ten of
thousands). This makes me think this ecosystem is not working properly, more,
because I post original content.

On the other hand, I am followed by a top VC who only follows a few people but
is followed by 1/2 million and this "karma" doesn't make any noticeable effect
on my twitter account.

~~~
simonswords82
Totally agree, the weightings on follower/following ratios are non-existent.
Would be nice if quality of following/followers could be valued over quantity.

There's also far too many bots on Twitter now. Feels like Twitter is going to
be a shit load of bots talking to one another when all the real humans leave.

------
blowski
> And, by nearly every metric, he had achieved remarkable success. Under his
> tenure, the company had grown from 300 employees to around 4,100.

Eurgh. I never understand how the number of employees you have can be a
success metric. By that logic, becoming more efficient would be a bad thing.

~~~
rwmj
What do 4,100 employees even _do_ at Twitter? It's not that complicated.

~~~
mikeryan
The backend systems for Twitter - advertising, data analysis, spam prevention,
infrastructure etc is vastly more complex what you see in a feed of 140
characters.

Plus sales and marketing budgets are huge.

Whether any of these systems or human resource needs are required to be
running at that scale is probably the question hitting Jack directly in the
face. I think the ballsiest move he could make would be to shrink it all down
to core services. But Wall Street would shit itself with that sort of
contraction.

~~~
jgalt212
> spam prevention

Yes, plenty on spam prevention, but seemingly little on bot prevention.
Without the bots, there'd be so many less MAUs.

------
pi-err
Twitter has an incredibly powerful brand and appeal. How many companies can
say they triggered revolutions?

Yet it's puzzling how much it fails to improve its basic product, 1 year in
Dorsey's comeback. On mobile, the search/explore screens are mostly
irrelevant. On desktop, they could position themselves as quasi TV channels
with live content update.

Yes, they lost the social wars and that's fine. They won the media war:
Twitter's mindshare vs its actual engagement rates makes it an amazing
opportunity.

Really hope it doesn't fade into a glorified RSS feed and manages to build on
the intensity of its content.

~~~
noam87
> Yet it's puzzling how much it fails to improve its basic product.

What's there to improve? As someone else said here on HN "Twitter should have
been an RFC."

The only thing that's broken here is not Twitter, it's the economic system
that can't just let a useful invention be, but instead forces it into a fight-
or-die, conquer-the-world-or-disappear nuclear arm's race.

Facebook was just fine as a place to keep in touch with friends and invite
them to events, Uber is just fine as a Taxi service, Candy Crush was just fine
as a silly iPhone game...

I wonder what we'll think of it all in a century, because there's no way this
insanity can go on for much longer.

~~~
baldfat
140 Character limit that includes url and hash tags which is finally going to
get released. Look at increasing the limit later on?

------
bedhead
Can't companies and products simply hit a natural limit? There are inherent
limitations to any given "thing" and perhaps Twitter has found its own
terminal velocity.

~~~
rsync
"Can't companies and products simply hit a natural limit?"

I think of craigslist when I read that. It's just a useful thing that works.
Nothing else. I wish there were more things like that.

~~~
arcanus
> I wish there were more things like that.

Perhaps not coincidentally, craigslist is not a public company.

~~~
a_small_island
Any idea on how much revenue they bring in? I tried a quick google search but
couldn't find any recent numbers.

~~~
swehner
How is this? [http://www.aimgroup.com/store/cirs/2015-craigslist-
annual/](http://www.aimgroup.com/store/cirs/2015-craigslist-annual/)

------
toldyouso
Let me quickly summarize every thread about twitter: 1) "Twitter in the old
days was great. They are ruining everything now!" 2) "Twitter has 0 revenue!
How can they be worth so much? It deserves to die." "Actually, they have 0
<i>profit</i>" "Oops! Point still stands!" 3) "But what do all the employees
even DO all day?" 4) "I stopped caring about Twitter when they closed off
their API" 5) "The world needs Twitter!" "No it doesn't!"

~~~
eric_h
Amusingly, each of those fits in a tweet ;)

------
funkyy
Twitter should grow horizontally now, not vertically. Company keeps a blind
eye on its brand strength.

Why not open up new services closely connected to Twitter:

-Video Hosting site - YT and LiveLeak competitor, but without all the noise

-Social Network where Twitter is a core, but social network by itself would be separate product - "wall" could use Twitter feed, this would work perfectly...

-Image hosting company - Imgur competitor

-News distribution and news curation company - its almost already that, worth investing in it

-Social tools company - thats easy...

As long as Twitter would stick to minimalistic design and rule "less is
better" it would work and Twitter could become worthy rival to ABC...

------
Grue3
>Twitter announced what it hoped would be the antidote for its user decline:
“Moments”

Yeah, I can't believe anyone thought that would work. It's like thinking that
the recent "you can now type 10 more characters because URLs don't count"
thing will save Twitter.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
I've always thought that overtime, gradually, they should've expanded their
character limit to something reasonable like 200-300 chars. Are they that
Microsoft like tied to being backwards compatible with SMS?

~~~
simonswords82
I'm not sure about that, but they definitely should have taken a move fast
break things style approach a la Facebook. New features on Twitter seem to
take forever to be decided upon and rolled out.

I often wonder if their architecture is stifling them in some way. If I were
Jack I'd want to set up a large opt in beta group to trial new features.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
So why can't they integrate Periscope directly with Twitter? Instead of
posting a Tweet, just press a button to live stream to my feed with Periscope.

~~~
mikeyouse
That feature actually launched recently for both Android and iOS (Maybe today
on iOS?).

[http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/16/twitter-is-testing-a-
perisc...](http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/16/twitter-is-testing-a-periscope-
live-streaming-button-inside-its-mobile-apps/)

------
swingbridge
The company is still far too bloated, contributing to the fact that it's
financials don't remotely support its valuation.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Twitter seem to serially fail in understanding their own product and the needs
of their users. Jack isn't doing any better.

~~~
whatever_dude
I think they understand the appeal they have, it's just that they're deciding
it's not what they want. They're trying to pivot it to make it grow. That's
what investors want to hear about, apparently; coverage, not depth.

Unfortunately for them they're trying to widen their appeal by making it less
appealing to their _current_ user base. I think we all know how it ends.

It's not a new tale.

------
mikeryan
If you replace "Twitter" with "Yahoo" and "Jack" with "Marissa" these stories
can be from 3 years ago.

Along those lines you can start taking current stories about "Yahoo" and make
them "Twitter" and see the future....

------
akud
> what the company is best at, which is being the platform where people weigh
> in on live events.

This is odd to me, since from what I see, the people who are most engaged with
twitter don't use it for live events at all. They use it for jokes.

~~~
pjc50
Why not both! :)

I know quite a few people who use it for making jokes about live events. The
other day my wife's mocking of the new BBC drama got quoted by the Mail's TV
reviewer.

------
wslh
_(Note to Jack Dorsey fans: if you want to downvote downvote with arguments)_

Obviously Jack Dorsey is not very capable and is bad at business execution.
There is/was a simple way to increase Twitter revenue and profits: giving
small and medium companies a way to pay for entry level access to their API in
the same way Google AdWords, etc work. I think there is a lot of money there
but they only know about wholeselling to companies/agencies with big budgets.

~~~
prawn
You might be copping downvotes because people think _your_ arguments that he's
"not very capable" and "is bad at business execution" don't hold up?

~~~
talmand
As a third party I would be interested in hearing why others feel the
arguments don't hold up. Just simply clicking the downvote button doesn't make
for an interesting discussion.

~~~
askldfhjkasfhd
The overwhelming opinion* seems to be that he's brilliant at what he does. The
post said it's obvious he's bad at business. If it's really that obvious, how
did everyone else get things so wrong?

A more transparent post would have said something like "Based on my world
view, assumptions, and preconceptions, he's bad at business. The common
narrative of Dorsey is XYZ. Here's why that's wrong."

Saying "it's obvious" when you're expressing an uncommon opinion doesn't set a
good tone for a discussion. Makes it seem like "I'm smart they're dumb I don't
need to explain my statement that runs counter to conventional wisdom".

* Not saying it's right, just that this is what the Twitter board / media / insiders / VCs /etc. seem to think.

~~~
talmand
That's not actually a response to my statement, even though it may be true.
You're just providing an excuse to downvote without bothering to engage in
discussion as to why to downvote. I want to hear the reasons for the downvote.

Just thinking I can downvote and not respond because of the "obvious" problems
of the statement is just as bad as your example of saying "it's obvious" about
an uncommon opinion is not good for discussion. You're just telling me "it's
obvious" why the other guy's "it's obvious" is wrong.

~~~
askldfhjkasfhd
Back up the bus - I didn't downvote. I start a new HN account well before I
ever get that invested.

There really wasn't an argument put forth beyond "he's bad at business, can't
you see it's obvious". His tone and lack of content other than an
unsubstantiated opinion are why there was no interesting discussion.

I never said "it's obvious" in any way shape or form, but I do believe this is
my stop. Have a nice day.

~~~
wslh
> His tone and lack of content other than an unsubstantiated opinion are why
> there was no interesting discussion.

It was not unsubstantiated. If I define a good business as a business with
profits, this definition has a lot of substance. Jack Dorsey obviously
achieved a lot of personal success and money from Twitter, I am not blind
about his amazing achievements. Amazing because they are statistically
difficult to obtain at this scale. BUT, being a public company is a different
stage of the game. As an startup you can be amazing while the finances are
hidden but when you are public you need to build a sustainable business and
this is not happening.

~~~
prawn
He also has his involvement in Square, Inc.

------
sbardle
Twitter has been mismanaged over the years. With FB, the buck stops with Zuck,
but at Twitter, the politics between the cofounders has meant there has been
no long-term strategic leadership. Twitter has got away with a lot of stuff
over the years because it was perceived to be cool, but these days, it's more
Henry Wrinkler than The Fonz.

------
thomasthomas
betting everything on the guy that wanted to 'disrupt receipts?'
[http://www.recode.net/2014/1/15/11622364/jack-dorseys-
advice...](http://www.recode.net/2014/1/15/11622364/jack-dorseys-advice-to-
dying-retailers-disrupt-receipts)

------
waddabadoo
I wish they would do something about the expensive Gnip situation. I
understand they need to make money, but just getting to know the prices takes
4 phonecalls, interviews etc.

Also, I noticed from few people who worked there that this company is
internally a total unstructured chaos. Nobody knows whats going on.

------
jgalt212
The best thing Twitter can say about Jack is that they pay him much less than
Yahoo pays Marissa.

Of course, he's only a part-time worker so they should pay him less.

------
mathattack
Is the issue the product itself, or the perceived relevance? Very hard for
fading social networks to regain their former glory. Look at AOL as the best
case.

------
brakmic
No.

~~~
guptaneil
Perhaps HN should enforce a minimum comment length, like at least 3 words...
One word comments clearly don't add value to a discussion.

~~~
Jedd
I almost agree, but I suspect it's a reference to previous discussions around
Betteridge's Law, for example:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9232419](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9232419)

I'm sure it's come up more than once, and it's a sensible response to
clickbaitesque headlines like this one.

~~~
brakmic
Yes, I agree.

The best response to a clickbaitesque headline is a short answer (and No
Click!). That's why I wrote "No". Everything else would just feed the trolls.
But of course, it's much easier to downvote such a comment than to think about
the clickbait itself.

Kind regards,

