Twitter (Social network company)
Twitter was created by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006 and launched in July of that year. By 2012, more than 100 million users posted 340 million tweets a day, and the service handled an average of 1.6 billion search queries per day. In 2013, it was one of the ten most-visited websites and has been described as "the SMS of the Internet". As of Q1 2019, Twitter had more than 330 million monthly active users. In practice, the vast majority of tweets are written by a minority of users.
As chief executive officer, Dorsey saw the startup through two rounds of capital funding by the venture capitalists who backed the company. On October 16, 2008, Williams took over the role of CEO, and Dorsey became chairman of the board. On October 4, 2010, Williams announced that he was stepping down as CEO. Dick Costolo, formerly Twitter's chief operating officer, became CEO. On October 4, 2010, Williams made an announcement saying that he will stay with the company and "be completely focused on product strategy".
According to The New York Times, "Mr. Dorsey and Mr. Costolo forged a close relationship" when Williams was away. According to PC Magazine, Williams was "no longer involved in the day-to-day goings on at the company". He was focused on developing a new startup, and became a member of Twitter's board of directors, and promised to "help in any way [he could]". In 2011, Stone was still with Twitter but was working with AOL as an "advisor on volunteer efforts and philanthropy". In January 2014, Stone announced the release of Jelly, a 'social Q&A network for mobile'. Dorsey rejoined Twitter in March 2011, as executive chairman focusing on product development. At that time, he split his schedule with Square (where he is CEO), whose offices are within walking distance of Twitter's in San Francisco.
In September 2011, board members and investors Fred Wilson and Bijan Sabet resigned from Twitter's board of directors. In October 2012, Twitter announced it had hired former Google executive Matt Derella to become their new director of business agency development. Twitter named former Goldman Sachs executive Anthony Noto as the company's CFO in July 2014, with an "annual salary of $250,000 and one-time restricted stock options of 1.5 million shares ... valued at $61.5 million". On June 10, 2015, Twitter announced its CEO Dick Costolo would resign on July 1, 2015. Noto was said to be considered a potential replacement for outgoing CEO Costolo. On October 14, 2015, former Google chief business officer Omid Kordestani became executive chairman, replacing Dorsey who remains CEO. On January 26, 2016, Leslie Berland, former executive vice president of global advertising, marketing, and digital partnerships at American Express, was named chief marketing officer. In November 2016, COO Adam Bain announced his resignation and CFO Anthony Noto took over Bain's role. A month later, on December 20, 2016, CTO Adam Messinger announced that he too was leaving.
In February 2020, it was reported that Elliott Management Corporation had acquired a stake in Twitter, with activist shareholder and Republican Party supporter Paul Singer expected to seek the removal of Dorsey as CEO. Twitter agreed to appoint a new independent director and two new board members, and to perform $2 billion in share buybacks.
On November 29, 2021, Jack Dorsey stepped down as CEO. He was replaced by CTO Parag Agrawal.
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