Jack Dorsey: What’s next for Twitter’s co-founder?

Until Monday he was running both companies – a situation that didn’t sit well with many investors.

Last year Elliott Management, a large Twitter investor, tried to make him choose between the two. They wanted a chief executive that spent their time on Twitter and Twitter alone.

This in part explains why Twitter’s share price didn’t nose dive when their iconic leader suddenly resigned again.

There has been a prevailing attitude for a long time amongst investors that Twitter is leaving money on the table – that it could generate a lot more revenue from its large and engaged user base.

And certainly a chief executive that had its undivided focus on Twitter might help.

When you compare Twitter to Google or Facebook, it’s a relative minnow.

Dorsey has been seen by some as the reason for Twitter’s stunted growth. A Twitter purist, who had helped create the platform, but didn’t want monetization at the expense of user experience.

To be fair to Dorsey he has tried to experiment with ways to generate more revenue. He also announced a target of 315 million monetizable users by the end of 2023 – and to double revenue in that year.

Twitter has done well at adding users during the pandemic, however that target is hugely ambitious.

It’s a goal that incoming chief executive, Parag Agrawal will inherit.

Indian born, Agrawal has risen though the ranks to become an apparently competent and well-respected chief technology officer. He’s been described as a safe pair of hands, and he has a huge job ahead of him.

Agrawal instantly takes on Dorsey’s monetization headache. Twitter is not Facebook. It holds far less information about you, and therefore the data it holds isn’t as valuable to advertisers.

You can also only serve users so many adverts before they start turning away. If your goal is high growth but also revenue increase – that can be a difficult balancing act.

Dorsey had become obsessed with cryptocurrencies, and in particular Bitcoin.

He’d recently set up a dedicated crypto team – looking at ways in which the company embraces digital assets and decentralized apps.

The team was to sit under Agrawal – perhaps a sign that digital currencies will play a key role in the new chief executive’s vision for the company’s growth.

But Twitter has become deeply political in the US, and Agrawal also inherits its moderation problems.

Democrats generally argue that the platform hasn’t done enough to take down fake news. They also argue its systems are not good at quickly locating removing hate speech.

Republicans argue that the platform has an anti-conservative bias – demonstrated by the decision to ban Donald Trump after the Capitol Hill riots.

Agrawal has gone from relative obscurity to a major public figure overnight, and will no doubt be called in front of Congress sooner rather than later.

Already, a tweet that he published in 2010 – a quote from the Daily Show – is being used by some Conservatives as evidence that the new chief executive is left-leaning.

Dorsey’s goodbye email included a barb at founders who stay too long at the companies they created. – bbc.com