By Nikhila Natarajan New York, Nov 29, : Jack Dorsey is moving on.He was the pioneer behind making Twitter the most popular social platform in the world to rant, laud and troll, or simply catch up.
Long-held speculations that he would confirm, @Jack, Dorsey’s handle for 18-years, enigmatically stated: “Not sure anyone has ever heard but” and attached a one page version of why/who.
Dorsey announced that Parag Agarwal, an Indian-American, will be the new CEO.
Agarwal was educated at Kendriya Vidyalaya (Central School), IIT Mumbai, and then he went on to Stanford PhD and ten years of Twitter.
Dorsey’s note criticized the idea of founder-led.He said that this construct sets companies up to fail.
45-year-old Dorsey was serving as the CEO of Twitter, and Square, his digital payment company.He will continue to be a member until the 2022 meeting for stockholders.
Bret Taylor, Salesforce boss, will replace Patrick Pichette, an ex-Google executive, as Twitter Chairman.
He will also remain on the board as Chair, Audit Committee.
Dorsey stated that he had decided to leave Twitter because he believes the company is ready for change from its founders.
“Deep gratitude to @jack and our whole team, and so many excitement for the future,” Agarwal stated in a quote-tweet from Dorsey.A short acceptance note was attached, along with a #oneteam tag, and a blue heart emoji.
Agrawal, CTO of Twitter since 2017, is not in for an easy task.Twitter’s stated goal to monetise for one is 315 million daily active users that can be monetised by the end 2023, and doubling its annual revenue.Agrawal is a specialist in strategy involving artificial intelligence (or machine learning) (read: No finance yet).
He attended the Atomic Energy Kendriya Vidyalaya before he studied computer science at IIT.
Agarwal was a research intern at Microsoft, Yahoo! and AT&T Labs while he was a student at Stanford.
After graduating from Stanford University, he joined Twitter to become an ads engineer.
He held that position from October 2011 through October 2017.
His first work as CTO was focused on increasing the relevancy of tweets in Twitter timelines using artificial intelligence.
Dorsey’s departure is not surprising.He was subject to pressure from Elliott Management Corp, an activist investor, over his time.
Dorsey had stated a year prior that he intended to spend six months in Africa to better understand Africa’s internet users.This plan was eventually scrapped by Covid-19.
The hedge fund and Silver Lake, a private equity group, reached an agreement to appoint three new directors to Twitter’s board of directors and to create a committee to examine leadership and governance.The deal was not without cost.Dorsey was expected increase Twitter’s monetised daily user base by 20% or more, and to boost revenue growth.
Agarwal’s extraordinary journey begins at a Kendriya Vidyalaya, which is part of the Atomic Energy Education Society (AEES).This society was established to provide education for children of employees of the Department of Atomic Energy.AEES manages 30 schools and junior college at 16 locations across the country, starting with one school in Anushaktinagar in Mumbai, 1969.
(Nikhila Natarajan tweets @byniknat)
nikhila/vd #oneteam #Jack #Dorsey #resigns #Parag #Agarwal #Mumbai
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