Adam Messinger, who works as Twitter Chief Technology Officer, announced this Tuesday that he will exit after four years in the position and five years in the company. Along with him, the Vice President of Product Josh McFarland announced he would also leave to work as a general partner and investor of the Greylock Group.
These resignations from Twitter executives seems to be normal as it becomes more frequent every month. Messinger was one of the most prominent officials while he worked as CTO after being Vice President of Development in the software company Oracle. He started his work on Twitter by being the Vice President of Engineering Infrastructure before taking the CTO position in 2013. His work was so valuable that he received over 1.25 million restricted stock units last year.
Josh McFarland, on the other hand, entered Twitter after his company TellApart was acquired by the microblogging firm, where he served as VP of Product for almost a year. According to former Twitter employees, Mr. McFarland was an important person among the company’s executives.
The Greylock Partners through one of their members, James Slavet, recognized the position McFarland will have in the company along with acknowledging the success he has had in the business world as the founder of TellApart. To this date, that company’s acquisition by Twitter is the most expensive one in their history, with a price of over $530 million.
“We’re thrilled to announce today that our eight-year process of recruiting Josh to the Greylock investment team has at last converged. Josh will be wrapping up his work at Twitter in late Q1 2017 and will join Greylock as a partner soon after,” Slavet wrote on the official blog site of Greylock Partners this Tuesday after the announcement.
Ed Ho, the actual Vice President of Engineering Services, will supervise product-related operations, as announced by Twitter Cofounder and CEO, Jack Dorsey.
Uncertainty regarding Twitter’s future
The primary concern of the Twitter executives in the last year has been whether the social platform has a basic utility to their users or not. The thing is that as chief executives leave, it’s even more difficult for the company to reshape and evolve toward new digital fields.
Last month the Chief Operating Officer also stepped down. Adam Bain, ex-COO, worked in Twitter for six years. He helped Twitter become what it is now and his hard work even made him a candidate for the Chief Executive Officer before the job went to Dorsey in mid-2015.
The main goal for Bain while he was COO was making Twitter profitable as engaging. As the financial growth didn’t go as planned, Bain was forced to announce the forfeit of over 350 jobs (9 percent of the workforce), in order to maintain the profitability in 2017.
Bain was one of the most valuable and beloved members of Twitter until his departure. He was considered the “company’s cheerleader” and was very popular in the headquarters. After he had left, he was replaced in functions by Anthony Noto, ex-Chief Financial Officer. However, until this date, Twitter is still searching for someone to replace Bain officially in the CFO position.
Along with the exit of primary executives, Twitter has to bear with some of their ex-workers moving to rival platforms. Early this year the Senior Vice President of Product, Kevin Weil, exited Twitter and almost instantly started working as head of product of the picture-charing network, Instagram.
These constant changes at the top of the company might cause confusion among the lower ranges. Twitter is focusing on becoming a tool for users while attracting new people to the platform. Right now, the company is not showing the stability, at the executive level, that could make both potential users and employees feel confident about entering the network.
One of the critics that Twitter has received is the double CEO method. Right now, Jack Dorsey is managing both Twitter and Square, a company he also helped found. The investors and employees themselves wonder about this mechanism regarding productivity and reliability.
Twitter and Salesforce: a possible sale?
When Jack Dorsey became the CEO of Twitter, one of the first actions he took was to let go over 8 percent of the company’s employees. One year after, another cut was announced, and 9 percent of the workforce was laid off. This was part of Dorsey’s attempt to rebuild Twitter, a social network that lost 55 percent value in the stock market in 2015.
This year, Twitter tried to sell itself to several buyers, in which Salesforce was included. This happened in October, right after there was announced the closing of Vine in order to keep the company profitable. Salesforce later retired itself from the bid after looking at Twitter’s Q3 numbers.
“In this case, we’ve walked away. It wasn’t the right fit for us. I wish Jack (Dorsey) very well,” Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in an interview when announcing the forfeit from the transaction.
Twitter is now focusing on streaming video, as it has reached agreements with the National Football League, the Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association, along with starting video streaming applications for Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Xbox One.
Source: Forbes