Five Key Executives Depart Twitter Simultaneously
posted Sunday Jan 31, 2016 by Nicholas DiMeo
Twitter's been under a bit of a revival plan as of late. It started about a year ago when the company decided to really take on trolls and abuse, and continued when former CEO Dick Costolo was replaced by co-founder Jack Dorsey. Dorsey, still running the company, has tried to focus on making Twitter profitable and sustainable, but the social media giant has been juggling executive roles in the process.
Shortly after our show wrapped last Sunday, Dorsey took to his domain to confirm that four major executives from Twitter would be leaving the company. Head of Products Kevin Weil, Head of Media Katie Jacobs Stanton, Head Engineer Alex Roetter and Head of HR Skip Schipper all were set to leave the company. In addition to those four, the head of Vine, Jason Toff, is also leaving Twitter to go work for Google again. It is being reported that some of these execs were asked to leave, while other simply resigned.
For instance, Stanton and Weil both said that they would be leaving the company to spend more time with their families. Roetter added that he would be "taking a step back" from Twitter while focusing on his family as well. This could all be a veil covering up the real reason they are all leaving, but that's what was posted on social media.
It is surprising to see five big names of a top company leave all at once, but considering the rapid decline of Twitter's stock price, it's possible that this is all ahead of massive shake-up within Twitter. The stock has been sinking for the past year, falling from its first day price of almost $45, to just under $18 this past week.
Dorsey has maintained his position as CEO of Twitter since June of last year, and has made several key changes since. Aside from the ones already mentioned, Dorsey also fired almost 10 percent of Twitter's total employee count back in October. On the positive end of the spectrum, Dorsey was behind the new feature, Twitter Moments, in hopes that it will bring new users to the platform and further engage existing ones. If the resignations of the five executives are any indication of it, there are only going to be more changes in 2016 for Twitter.
