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

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#71

Post by mortenjorck » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 9:23 PM UTC

staunch wrote: post #60

jasondc wrote: post #5

This could be like Steve Jobs coming back to Apple, or it could be like Marc Pincus coming back to Zynga. Hopefully the former.

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…

Actually, that might not be as silly as it sounds... What if Twitter tried to pivot into something like Patreon? They already have one of the world's largest social graphs of followers and creators; just add a payment layer and things could get quite interesting.

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#72

Post by myth_buster » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 9:24 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #63

myth_buster wrote: post #56

Glassdoor: 88% CEO approval rating from 220 ratings. It's interesting that there is such a disconnect between employees and stakeholders. On a related note Chris Sacca wrote this blog [0] titled "What twitter can be" last week. [0]: http://lowercasecapital.com/2015/06/03/what-twitter-can-be-2...

[deleted]

  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 bootstrap when investors run away with money.

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#73

Post by toomuchtodo » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 9:24 PM UTC

hellbanner wrote: post #66

omgitstom wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way to allow that connection is to have employees as a collective majority shareholder

Like here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9696476

I hope this model continues to evolve in other companies. I'd rather see employees do well versus shareholders (who may or may not be employees), VCs, and investment bankers managing an IPO.

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#74

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 9:24 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #63

myth_buster wrote: post #56

Glassdoor: 88% CEO approval rating from 220 ratings. It's interesting that there is such a disconnect between employees and stakeholders. On a related note Chris Sacca wrote this blog [0] titled "What twitter can be" last week. [0]: http://lowercasecapital.com/2015/06/03/what-twitter-can-be-2...

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#75

Post by themeek » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 9:26 PM UTC

Twitter has been a frustration for US propaganda efforts for a long time (e.g. https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/cen...).

Whoever usurps Dick Costolo, if they pursue 'removing and preventing fake accounts', they are also likely to partner more closely with the Department of State and DoD to support strategic communication and counter-strategic communications efforts - taking down accounts the US claims represent efforts by Russia, other actors, or contain ideas and narratives that harm United States national security.

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#76

Post by nilkn » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 9:26 PM UTC

staunch wrote: post #60

jasondc wrote: post #5

This could be like Steve Jobs coming back to Apple, or it could be like Marc Pincus coming back to Zynga. Hopefully the former.

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).

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#77

Post by walterbell » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 9:28 PM UTC

brandonlipman wrote: post #16

colbyh wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ev as CEO would be a better call than Jack, IMO. Ev's passion is still in a related space where as I don't think Jack's heart is as connected to the Twitter product as it is to Square these days. Really though, I'd take a random bum off the street as CEO before Anthony Noto. So there's that.

Completely agree. I love his philosophy on product. What he has done at Medium shows how he can build a product. It's incredible.

Twitter can acquire Medium, completing the Steve Jobs narrative.

Medium recently made major strategic changes, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9702651

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#78

Post by dchuk » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 9:28 PM UTC

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 standard blog posts on their own domains. It could completely open up the platform to new opportunities, plus allow for richer expression in content which means they can mine the ever living shit out of it even more accurately to improve their advertising profits.

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#79

Post by slaven » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 9:32 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…

Not to mention that adding an image chops 20+ chars of my limit. Want a URL in there and maybe a hashtag? You're down to less than 100 characters. These arbitrary platform limits should not burden the end user.

Re: Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo Is Stepping Down

#80

Post by jccooper » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 9:32 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…

Minimalism is a strong feature of Twitter. The effect of lifting the character limit is unpredictable, and I'm not certain it would be positive. It could be, but my personal reaction would probably be to use it less if the fire hose increased in magnitude.