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Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

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Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#221
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read this and the wiki page and still have no idea which I should run (usually Chrome / Mac if that matters). I'm using non-Origin right now.

Sorry, I thought they linked to this https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Maintainership-transf... Note: that's an old version. The current revision is here https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Maintainership-transf... It doesn't seem to matter which fork you use, but I personally use uBlock Origin

So the original author transferred ownership (incl. github page) to a the uBlock community, in reality to one of them. It turned out he handed it over to s kid who in turn made some weird source code changes and asked prominently for money/donations.

This scheme seems to popular with adblockers, afaik the original AdBlock and the AdBlockPlus had a similar "relationship". And later a German company took over AdBlockPlus in a similar manner and is doing big business in a gray area (whitelisting domains costs ad networks a lot of money and is absurd for an adblocker!?)

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#222
post #76
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is Steve Jobs spent 10 years working on NeXT, developing a clearer vision of the PC and creating what became OSX. Jack Dorsey spent 5 years doing POS systems and credit card processing deals at Square. Twitter isn't lacking for a "Twitter Pay" feature. Dorsey's original idea for Twttr was a service that let you group SMS what club you're at to your friends list. If he had been on his own it probably wo…

Is Square that much of a failure? I've always had a positive impression of it, and a lot of small merchants in my city use it and seem to like it (or so I thought).

"POS" in GP post expands to "point of sale". Square is doing well.

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#223
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Square that much of a failure? I've always had a positive impression of it, and a lot of small merchants in my city use it and seem to like it (or so I thought).

"POS" in GP post expands to "point of sale". Square is doing well.

Oh, gotcha! I was thinking it was a different acronym for some reason. :)

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many small biz retailers form clothing store, restaurant, even bigger coffeeshops have told me this.

I see Square all over the place now. Maker Faire uses it; we bought our Christmas tree with it; the ferry to Angel Island uses it; we bought some vodka from a tiny distillery in Seattle with it; we found a great smoked fish shack in Central California that uses it. All these places were cash-only before Square. There's certainly a lot of competition in the space, but I'm amazed at how different the small business lan…

Great smoked fish shack? Tell me more!

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see Square all over the place now. Maker Faire uses it; we bought our Christmas tree with it; the ferry to Angel Island uses it; we bought some vodka from a tiny distillery in Seattle with it; we found a great smoked fish shack in Central California that uses it. All these places were cash-only before Square. There's certainly a lot of competition in the space, but I'm amazed at how different the small business lan…

Great smoked fish shack? Tell me more!

http://www.yelp.com/biz/ruddells-smokehouse-cayucos-2

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#226
post #219
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users don't want change unless it's really good change, then it's the best thing that can happen. Here's what Twitter used to look like: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jackdorsey/188430472 https://www.flickr.com/photos/factoryjoe/190576959 I remember those days too and the product is much better now. It could be much better still.

Don't get me wrong; I agree with your "good change" observation, and I wasn't saying the Twitter interface should have been frozen in time at 2006 (and I definitely wasn't saying there is no room for improvement, even now). I'm simply of the opinion that Twitter is rapidly losing sight of what their purpose is.

Twitter doesn't have a purpose, it serves a purpose.

We can all disagree about what function Twitter performs for individuals, or in the marketplace, or what have you. But it isn't like there's ever a destination for a company or medium or whatever it is that Twitter is.

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#227
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have to pre-pay 75 years worth, including future employees

It's not 75 years and it's not for future employees. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/unraveling-the-myth-that-t...

50 years still seems like a lot, but I'm not from the US, so I don't know whether it really is for pre-paying health benefits?

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#228

Having a founder and product visionary (Jack) in the driver's seat at Twitter is absolutely the right move. Sure, Jack has his quirks, and seems a little bit crazy and minimalistic, but that's exactly what makes him the right person for the job. Twitter is executing on its vision now just fine, but that's just the problem: There hasn't been any vision left in the company. No truly big moves have been made, and the pr…

I think we tend to overuse the word visionary quite a bit these days in the industry. Have you read the book by other Twitter founder who was ousted? He paints a different picture of Jack. Jack is no slouch but a visionary? He is not in the same league as Elon Musk. Jack is a hipster in a suit; he is smart and has carefully crafted his public persona (probably inspired by Jobs and modeled his persona after his ideas). Simple ideas can be powerful and can touch millions of lives. That doesn't make the person who initially came up with idea or some variant of it a visionary. On that metric, Evan Spiegel is a visionary too.

We should collectively be critical about how loosely we tend to use superlatives and not base the stories spun by PR machinery to qualify a person or her work. Elon Musk has invested his money, ideas, energy into - Making solar one of largest sources of clean energy - An electric car which is not a joke and probably better than a BMW M5 to drive, self-driving cars? - Satellites to cover entire land on earth with wifi - A plan to go to Mars and setup a camp there - A plan for rapid transit through tubes. Opensourced design blue-prints. - SpaceX

He is not dead and he has long way to go. We should reserve the word visionary for people like him. Let us be honest.

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#229

Having a founder and product visionary (Jack) in the driver's seat at Twitter is absolutely the right move. Sure, Jack has his quirks, and seems a little bit crazy and minimalistic, but that's exactly what makes him the right person for the job. Twitter is executing on its vision now just fine, but that's just the problem: There hasn't been any vision left in the company. No truly big moves have been made, and the pr…

I think we tend to overuse the word visionary quite a bit these days in the industry. Have you read the book by other Twitter founder who was ousted? He paints a different picture of Jack. Jack is no slouch but a visionary? He is not in the same league as Elon Musk. Jack is a hipster in a suit; he is smart and has carefully crafted his public persona (probably inspired by Jobs and modeled his persona after his ideas)…

Well said.

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he can do that to Square and their investors as nice as the story sounds.

He has ran both companies simultaneously in the past via 16 hour work days: http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2011/11/14/jack-dorsey-do...

Don't believe everything you read.
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