
Twitter has officially unveiled co-founder Jack Dorsey as the social network’s permanent chief executive, meaning the 38-year-old is now running both Twitter and payment processor Square.
Dorsey has been Twitter’s interim CEO since July when Dick Costolo, chief exec for five years, stepped down after shares in the company started to drop, falling nearly 50 per cent in the past year.
One man, two companies
There were obvious concerns to making Dorsey the permanent CEO and serious questions asked. How can Dorsey run Twitter when he’s simultaneously running another company, not some little startup, but a multi-billion payment processing monolith that is about to go public?
Square has been navigating dangerous waters recently and is starting to see serious competition from other startups such as Stripe, which has recently broke new ground with its new ecommerce software, the recent wave of ‘Pays’ from Apple, Samsung and Android, and of course PayPal.
Will Dorsey be able to react quickly enough to developments at Square, if at least 50 per cent of his attention will be on Twitter?
‘Arrogant’
There was a high level of uncertainty amongst some of the shareholders. “This is arrogant Silicon Valley thinking, the idea that there is no one else who can do this job. To be done well, leadership requires time and focus, and where are the time and focus going to come from? What happens if there is a crisis?” he told the Financial Times. He also said he would ask the Twitter board to explain their decision and ask Dorsey to stand down.
Dorsey unfazed
Dorsey seems very confident in his ability to manage two multi-billion companies, citing the last three months as evidence.
Both companies have strong businesses and are well positioned to grow their impact in the world. I will do whatever it takes to ensure that.
— Jack (@jack) October 5, 2015
He also reiterated his mission at Twitter:
Our work forward is to make Twitter easy to understand by anyone in the world, and give more utility to the people who love to use it daily!
— Jack (@jack) October 5, 2015
Whitepapers
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