Dorsey is no longer the CEO of Twitter, though he will remain on its board until next year. CTO Parag Agrawal is replacing him instead.
Earlier this week, Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, stepped down from his position with immediate effect. The 45-year-old, responsible for co-founding the company in 2006, will be replaced by the current Chief Technology Officer, Parag Agrawal, the company said on Monday.
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Dorsey himself tweeted his resignation for the whole world to see.
not sure anyone has heard but,
I resigned from Twitter pic.twitter.com/G5tUkSSxkl
— jack (@jack) November 29, 2021
“I’ve decided to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders,” he explains, although he doesn’t provide any additional reason for the resignation.
Dorsey will remain a member of the company board until his term expires at the 2022 stockholders meeting. In addition, Salesforce President and COO Bret Taylor will replace former Google executive Patrick Pichette as chairman of the board. However, Pichette will remain on the board as chair of the audit committee.
Dorsey stated that Agrawal has been his choice to lead the company “for some time given how deeply he understands the company and its needs.”
Since 2017, Agrawal has served as Twitter’s CTO, leading artificial intelligence and machine learning projects. He was also behind the push for making tweets in users’ timelines more relevant to them. Before joining Twitter, Agrawal held research internships at AT&T, Microsoft, and Yahoo.
Agrawal will have to meet Twitter’s aggressive internal goals, including executing the company’s plan to double its revenue by the end of 2023.
According to the company’s managing partner, Jesse Cohn, and senior portfolio manager Marc Steinberg “Twitter is now executing against an ambitious multi-year plan to dramatically increase the company’s reach and value, and we look forward to the next chapter of Twitter’s story … Having gotten to know both incoming Chairman Bret Taylor and incoming CEO Parag Agrawal, we are confident that they are the right leaders for Twitter at this pivotal moment for the company.”
Dorsey challenged corporate conventions with his appearance as much as his lifestyle and innovation focus. But most of the pressure came from investors, who expressed concern about the company being founder-led, and about its leader running Square at the same time.
On Sunday, Dorsey tweeted, apparently unprompted: “I love Twitter.”
I love twitter
— jack (@jack) November 28, 2021
Dorsey initially served as CEO for a few years when it first launched before being pushed out of office. In 2015 he returned to lead Twitter after former CEO Dick Costolo stepped down. Since then, the company’s shares have grown 85% in value.