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Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

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Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#111

Post by gkoberger »

dragontamer wrote: post #98
gkoberger wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a genuine question... isn't that his job? For a public company, the CEO has to be a public CEO. Everyone takes on a different persona (some sell themselves as business geniuses, others as creative geniuses, and others as someone you wanna grab a beer with). Some really like it, and some do it begrudgingly. But at the end of the day, you can't be the same CEO of a public company as you were when you were priva…

Only if you pretend that the CEOs job is purely for raising money. Nominally, CEOs are supposed to run the company and help brew the culture that makes that company productive. We've grown a bunch of celebrity CEOs because people stopped caring about how companies worked over the last 10 years of low interest rates. But now that it's harder to raise money, it's time to see these guys run the companies they built.

Everything you said here is true, but I don't think it applies to Twilio or Jeff.

I don't think you can accuse Jeff of not caring about company culture. He built one of the defining dev cultures out there. Yes, this have changed as they've grown, but I've always found the people and offices of Twilio to be warm, productive and smart.

And Twilio was forged in the hardest time to raise money ever... 2008. If anyone knows how hard it is to build in a climate without easy money, it would be Jeff.

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#112

Post by karim »

movingmove wrote: post #81

I had the "pleasure" working for Twilio for over 4 years. I cannot tell how much this showed me how you can fake it til you make it in SF. Twilio tried to expand into Europe and failed miserably. Customers (especially German ones) wanted exact locations of data, exact routes of packet transportation, wanted features Twilio promised on Slides but never delivered. I was part of at least 4 customer meetings (the biggest…

One year into it you knew the company was going to fail yet you stayed on for 3 more years? What happened there?

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#113

Post by sbeckeriv »

I haven't used twillo since 2014 and I don't use twillo at company. I have recently tried to use it for my own projects and I have not had a good time with the product. I was able to set things up fine with the docs but the ui and the support didn't seem to understand the hobbyist concept. I could not get my number registered for texting again and support did not care. Example: I cant release the number I have because it has an emergency address I need to remove. I cant find the ui to remove the address. I can only add address. While the ui banner says "Please add an emergency address to this phone number or you may incure a $75.00 charge per emergency call."

I am just waiting for my minimum required balance to be eating up by fees i dont understand. I have moved on to a chat service. I wish them luck moving forward.

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#115

Post by neom »

haswell wrote: post #29
CamelCaseName wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and knew they were something special Can you share more insights on how you knew they were special?

Not OP, but their approach to devrel was by itself a huge differentiator early on. We’ve become so accustomed to developer-oriented marketing and programs that it’s easy to forget that Twilio was really at the cutting edge of this movement and should be credited (or at least acknowledged) for the easy on-ramps most developer programs now provide. Twilio also pushed the envelope in terms of what it means to talk to th…

Developers And Depression | Greg Baugues | Talks at Google:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CausE8Sc8Uc

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#116

Post by haswell »

gregorymichael wrote: post #53
haswell wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but their approach to devrel was by itself a huge differentiator early on. We’ve become so accustomed to developer-oriented marketing and programs that it’s easy to forget that Twilio was really at the cutting edge of this movement and should be credited (or at least acknowledged) for the easy on-ramps most developer programs now provide. Twilio also pushed the envelope in terms of what it means to talk to th…

Hi. Greg here. :heart: Good job taking the steps to get help!

Hey Greg! Thanks again for the work you were doing. It made a difference.

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#117

Post by michaelt »

gkoberger wrote: post #89
throwaway_108 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also why George Hu left Twilio. Because Jeff wanted to be a celebrity CEO, and it was to the detriment of the company. All of Twilio's growth (as a public company) happened on George's watch. I don't think it's a coincidence that well after George left, on Jeff's watch - they had to do 3 different layoff for a total of ~24% of their entire public company being let go. Note: former senior level Twilio employee, p…

This is a genuine question... isn't that his job? For a public company, the CEO has to be a public CEO. Everyone takes on a different persona (some sell themselves as business geniuses, others as creative geniuses, and others as someone you wanna grab a beer with). Some really like it, and some do it begrudgingly. But at the end of the day, you can't be the same CEO of a public company as you were when you were priva…

There's celebrity CEOs and there's celebrity CEOs.

Without googling, can you tell me the name of the CEO of Target? Sony? Texas Instruments? BMW? FedEx? Mitsubishi? Exxon? Home Depot? Siemens? Procter & Gamble? 3M? Nestle? Broadcom?

I certainly can't.

But I bet you can tell me who the CEOs of Tesla and Amazon are.

Just because whoever-is-in-charge-of-siemens hasn't run a vanity PR campaign to raise their personal profile, doesn't mean it would help the company if they did.

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#118

Post by ctz »

karim wrote: post #112
movingmove wrote: post #81

I had the "pleasure" working for Twilio for over 4 years. I cannot tell how much this showed me how you can fake it til you make it in SF. Twilio tried to expand into Europe and failed miserably. Customers (especially German ones) wanted exact locations of data, exact routes of packet transportation, wanted features Twilio promised on Slides but never delivered. I was part of at least 4 customer meetings (the biggest…

One year into it you knew the company was going to fail yet you stayed on for 3 more years? What happened there?

I'm not the OP, but agree with their assessment and stayed 3.5 years despite that. For me, the reason was the vesting schedule: 4 years with a 1 year cliff.

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#119

Post by ilrwbwrkhv »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #21
pylua wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stock price has been lackluster unfortunately. I’m not sure as to why.

I'm somewhat on top of the stock, here's my not financial advice take: 1. Growth rate slowed such that valuations had to come down (went from inevitable overtaking of Salesforce in size, to decades of growth required) 2. Environment -- Cashflow negative meaning another raise was required without fiscal controls and in a high interest environment that's really tough. A return to office end of covid anxiety meant the C…

The new CEO will be selling the company now. Hold on.

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#120

Post by mikepurvis »

itsoktocry wrote: post #103
gkoberger wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a genuine question... isn't that his job? For a public company, the CEO has to be a public CEO. Everyone takes on a different persona (some sell themselves as business geniuses, others as creative geniuses, and others as someone you wanna grab a beer with). Some really like it, and some do it begrudgingly. But at the end of the day, you can't be the same CEO of a public company as you were when you were priva…

> For a public company, the CEO has to be a celebrity CEO. Is it? From the DJIA: can you even name the CEO of 3M? Cisco? Amex? Visa? I don't think celebrity is a pre-req for being a CEO. And as OP suggests, it could even be a detriment.

It's also a double edged sword where greater visibility leads to greater scrutiny. Galen Weston Jr stepped into the public eye much more during the pandemic as the face of Loblaws (Canadian grocery chain), and although it originally was welcome, he ended up outing himself as just another entitled, out of touch zillionaire, and at least in my social circles becoming kind of as punchline.
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