Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 292 posts

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#7

Post by gkoberger »

I don't know much about what happened here, but I did meet the early Twilio team (not Jeff, unfortunately) back in 2009 and knew they were something special.

Jeff (and team) deserve a ton of credit for two massive things:

First, changing how people think about devtools. I know Stripe gets a lot of credit, but Twilio was 3 years earlier and really defined how we look at building, marketing and monetizing tools meant for devs. They were early (if not first) to the devrel space, and Jeff's live coding (paired with a phone literally vibrating) was something I had never seen before.

Second, I know a lot of people have lots of opinions about San Francisco, but I have a lot of respect to Jeff for always standing up and fighting for the city that enabled him to build his company. He seems to be a really good person, and is one of the few CEOs I find myself eager to emulate.

Good luck to Jeff, Twilio, and everyone else involved. Jeff built something really special in the early years. And jeffiel, now that you have a bit more time on your hands, hopefully we can finally cross paths!

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#8

Post by pylua »

gkoberger wrote: post #7

I don't know much about what happened here, but I did meet the early Twilio team (not Jeff, unfortunately) back in 2009 and knew they were something special. Jeff (and team) deserve a ton of credit for two massive things: First, changing how people think about devtools. I know Stripe gets a lot of credit, but Twilio was 3 years earlier and really defined how we look at building, marketing and monetizing tools meant f…

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

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#9

Post by CamelCaseName »

gkoberger wrote: post #7

I don't know much about what happened here, but I did meet the early Twilio team (not Jeff, unfortunately) back in 2009 and knew they were something special. Jeff (and team) deserve a ton of credit for two massive things: First, changing how people think about devtools. I know Stripe gets a lot of credit, but Twilio was 3 years earlier and really defined how we look at building, marketing and monetizing tools meant f…

> and knew they were something special

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

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#10

Post by maerF0x0 »

https://archive.is/8Ffn4

Keep in mind his voting structure changed in May meaning he lost some shareholder power.

> Its use of supervoting shares, which gives CEO and co-founder Jeff Lawson a voting stake of 21.8% even though he owns only 3.7% of the stock, [1]

No derogatory remarks intended to Jeff, Jeff certainly has had great moments, but Kho is also a fantastic leader and capital allocator, who's made some truly uncanny calls (like raising in the market near the top,and share buy back near the bottom). I think Kho is the right person for the job in the times that Twilio finds themselves. It's something I've hoped for for years, as a shareholder. Jeff deserves praise for the humility to step down and promote from within a well groomed and talented successor.

[1]: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/twilio-set-to-lose-s...

Post reply on HN