Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#131

Post by edgarvaldes » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 10:20 PM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #93

dchuk wrote: post #78

How come Twitter doesn't lift the character limit on tweets? Then you could allow content writers to write a more coherent thought (IE not breaking it into a 20+ message tweet storm) and then normal length tweets could serve just as comments. Lifting the character limit could make Twitter a publishing powerhouse over night. With the right API support, writers could write their content on Twitter and have it appear as…

The origins of the 140 character limit are interesting; it was originally put in place because Twitter was SMS-based, and SMS limits the number of characters to 160. 140 allowed some wiggle room. But retaining the character limit changes the platform entirely. "Lifting the twitter limit" does not a publishing platform make; it changes everything that Twitter is. I think Jack explained the psychological reasons very w…

You just write a nice "blog post" in this comment :)

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#132

Post by logicallee » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 10:21 PM UTC

dchuk wrote: post #78

How come Twitter doesn't lift the character limit on tweets? Then you could allow content writers to write a more coherent thought (IE not breaking it into a 20+ message tweet storm) and then normal length tweets could serve just as comments. Lifting the character limit could make Twitter a publishing powerhouse over night. With the right API support, writers could write their content on Twitter and have it appear as…

the net is becoming so low content, tweets are a miracle of history. Look at blogs and comments anywhere else: so much filler.

I can't name another medium built around this much respect for the time and attention of readers, down to the character. It's great.

Note: the above started as 2 long paragraphs; as an exercise I edited it down to 2 tweets - I think it's better!

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#133

Post by austenallred » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 10:21 PM UTC

edgarvaldes wrote: post #131

austenallred wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The origins of the 140 character limit are interesting; it was originally put in place because Twitter was SMS-based, and SMS limits the number of characters to 160. 140 allowed some wiggle room. But retaining the character limit changes the platform entirely. "Lifting the twitter limit" does not a publishing platform make; it changes everything that Twitter is. I think Jack explained the psychological reasons very w…

You just write a nice "blog post" in this comment :)

I almost commented on the irony of that, but I ran out of characters :)

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#134

Post by myth_buster » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 10:24 PM UTC

blumkvist wrote: post #90

myth_buster wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be good to your employees and bad for stockholders. One way to do this is to hand out bonuses instead of dividends. Agreed. But don't the employees have higher stakes running on the long term success of the company compared to investors who are known to be in for short term profit and hence can't the former be a better indicator? Eg: Mass employee exodus results in company going bust while the team can still…

Employees often have less business acumen then an old lady selling on the open market. I find it amusing that people who can code think they can do anything and everything. Despite what you like to to believe, those MBAs do have value. Lots of it.

  people who can code think they can do anything and everything

I referred to employees not programmers. Also that's uncalled for.

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#135

Post by austenallred » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 10:25 PM UTC

maerek wrote: post #92

From an update to the article: [Update: On the conference call, Costolo said he initiated internal conversations about leaving at the end of last year, and that following discussions in Feburary and his decision to step down, Twitter decided to begin the CEO search. Costolo said he chose to leave now because he thought staying on through the CEO search would cause scrutiny to intensify. During the Q&A, Twitter execs…

>The line about 'no severance package' seems highly unusual and would lead me to assume that this was a forceful 'push' to step down.

It's rather normal for people to not get severance packages when they quit.

Costolo is remaining on the board, and got a ton of stock when he became CEO. Considering that he grew the company's valuation from $3 Billion to $23 Billion (7.6x for those doing the math), I can assure you he doesn't really need a severance package anyway.

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#136

Post by dchuk » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 10:31 PM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #93

dchuk wrote: post #78

How come Twitter doesn't lift the character limit on tweets? Then you could allow content writers to write a more coherent thought (IE not breaking it into a 20+ message tweet storm) and then normal length tweets could serve just as comments. Lifting the character limit could make Twitter a publishing powerhouse over night. With the right API support, writers could write their content on Twitter and have it appear as…

The origins of the 140 character limit are interesting; it was originally put in place because Twitter was SMS-based, and SMS limits the number of characters to 160. 140 allowed some wiggle room. But retaining the character limit changes the platform entirely. "Lifting the twitter limit" does not a publishing platform make; it changes everything that Twitter is. I think Jack explained the psychological reasons very w…

I get what you're saying, but lifting the character limit doesn't in any way mean you need to write longer tweets. You could still just write off the cuff thoughts when you have them, as the platform currently allows for.

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#137

Post by anon808 » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 10:32 PM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #135

maerek wrote: post #92

From an update to the article: [Update: On the conference call, Costolo said he initiated internal conversations about leaving at the end of last year, and that following discussions in Feburary and his decision to step down, Twitter decided to begin the CEO search. Costolo said he chose to leave now because he thought staying on through the CEO search would cause scrutiny to intensify. During the Q&A, Twitter execs…

>The line about 'no severance package' seems highly unusual and would lead me to assume that this was a forceful 'push' to step down. It's rather normal for people to not get severance packages when they quit. Costolo is remaining on the board, and got a ton of stock when he became CEO. Considering that he grew the company's valuation from $3 Billion to $23 Billion (7.6x for those doing the math), I can assure you he…

and he's also getting a nice return on his angel investment in tellapart . . . which twitter acquired a month ago for $.5 Billion.

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#138

Post by wslh » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 10:33 PM UTC

Make the firehose available for anyone at an affordable price and the earnings will jump.

Talk is cheap but in a way this is what Google did with AdWords. In the past you should have a budget of thousands dollars to advertise on popular sites like Yahoo. Google found a way to keep the required budget at a minimum.

I think Twitter haven't done that because it is always more comfortable to talk to a few customers who can pay a lot of money instead of having an horde using your service, but it is currently unacceptable to think this way if you are Twitter.

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#139

Post by dougdonohoe » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 10:36 PM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #93

dchuk wrote: post #78

How come Twitter doesn't lift the character limit on tweets? Then you could allow content writers to write a more coherent thought (IE not breaking it into a 20+ message tweet storm) and then normal length tweets could serve just as comments. Lifting the character limit could make Twitter a publishing powerhouse over night. With the right API support, writers could write their content on Twitter and have it appear as…

The origins of the 140 character limit are interesting; it was originally put in place because Twitter was SMS-based, and SMS limits the number of characters to 160. 140 allowed some wiggle room. But retaining the character limit changes the platform entirely. "Lifting the twitter limit" does not a publishing platform make; it changes everything that Twitter is. I think Jack explained the psychological reasons very w…

I never understood 'tweet storms', especially since the feed is in reverse chronological order, possibly interspersed with tweets from other sources. No easy way to read it in order.

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#140

Post by udev » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 10:36 PM UTC

Twitter is a complicated case.

On one hand it has incredible political clout as free speech tool, is used by most celebrities, etc.

Yet, its very design makes monetization difficult, and in my opinion, unlikely to ever be of great success.