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Twitter CEO Pushes Out Top Execs, Freezes Hiring (theverge.com) 70

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Twitter is shaking up its top leadership. The first move came as consumer product leader Kayvon Beykpour announced on Twitter that current CEO Parag Agrawal "asked me to leave after letting me know that he wants to take the team in a different direction." From a report: Bruce Falck, the general manager of revenue and head of product for its business side, confirmed in a (now deleted) tweet that he was also fired by Agrawal. Now Jay Sullivan, who we spoke to in March about Twitter's plans to add 100 million daily users, will take over as both the head of product and interim head of revenue. These moves are occurring at the same time Elon Musk moves forward with his $44 billion purchase of Twitter, although he hasn't taken ownership of the company yet. In a memo to employees obtained by The Verge, Agrawal wrote, "At the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, the decision was made to invest aggressively to deliver big growth in audience and revenue, and as a company we did not hit intermediate milestones that enable confidence in these goals."
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Twitter CEO Pushes Out Top Execs, Freezes Hiring More

Twitter CEO Pushes Out Top Execs, Freezes Hiring

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  • Broke. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AcidFnTonic ( 791034 ) on Thursday May 12, 2022 @01:16PM (#62526620) Homepage

    Yep with 44billion coming they need to basically act broke.

    I remember laughing at companies that act like this when I worked for Quicken. Nice downtown office in the center of detroit, Gilbert owns over 96 buildings in the city, also owning many parking decks. They can afford to rend out COBO Hall every few weeks for mandatory all hands RA RA meetings where Gilbert walks out on stage like he's some housing god.

    But one talk about housing and the company flips off hiring, stops raises, and acts like they just aren't going to make it anymore. Then a few weeks later, oh yeah alls kewl lets throw out 1500 job openings again and buy some more buildings downtown.

    So glad I left hellholes like that for a company that actually shares in the profits. Everywhere else we just shared the losses while watching the owner grow by 8 billion dollars net worth in a year.

    • Re:Broke. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Burdell ( 228580 ) on Thursday May 12, 2022 @01:23PM (#62526650)

      Do you understand that Twitter isn't getting a dime of that $44 billion?

      • The money is to be placed on the pyre and burned.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by GoTeam ( 5042081 )
          At least it would provide warmth in that case. Hopefully they'll save the burning for Winter

        • For every party there's a counterparty. Someone's getting that money, and the government is getting >$22B in various tax streams from it, one way or another.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            For every party there's a counterparty. Someone's getting that money

            The current owners of twitter. They sell the company and keep the money. Twitter the business is not getting the money.

        • Huh? It's like if you buy a home for $500K. It doesn't free up $500K to invest in fixing it up.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Do you understand that Twitter isn't getting a dime of that $44 billion?

        He worked at Quicken, it's clear he has no clue about finance.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rei ( 128717 )

      There's no guarantee that they'll get that money. Elon can back out for a $1B fee. Twitter's fundamental valuation has crashed (both macro and internal) since the offer was made, and Musk has all grounds to take the $1B hit and make a new, much lower bid. Right now it's just Musk's bid propping the stock price up.

      Whether he will or not, who knows. This is being driven by emotion more than anything else.

      • Agree. He could likely have the whole thing for half that today.

        At the same time, Agrawal makes the company more attractive for acquisition (or increased valuation) by grossly reducing costs and making management shifts in the direction that drives Musk's valuation for the company.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      "Parag Agrawal."

      I think that's what my dog said when I gave him his less favored brand of dog food this morning.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tgeek ( 941867 )
      Guess what the last item on his to do list is! LOL
    • Yeah, I have to believe his is the first head to hit the chopping block when Elon gets twitter proper.

      I mean, his statements against free speech are in direct contrast to those expressed by Musk and people don't change their colors that fast, you know?

      • Or he's the type that doesn't actually care but says whatever is popular at the time. For as much money as those executives make I'd say all kinds of shit I didn't actually believe if it meant the government would stay off the company's back.

        • Or he's the type that doesn't actually care but says whatever is popular at the time. For as much money as those executives make I'd say all kinds of shit I didn't actually believe if it meant the government would stay off the company's back.

          Believing in free speech but going against it for political convenience is not exactly Elon compatible behavior either

    • Re:Parag Agrawal still has a job? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Thursday May 12, 2022 @01:54PM (#62526756)

      We need to stop allowing George Lucas to name our CEOs, really.

    • Parag Agrawal still has a job?

      Well right now he exists in a Quantum state where he may or may not, seems like he may be trying to make moves to show Musk he has value, even if just as a toady.

    • "You can leave today or you can leave in six months."

  • Oh wow (Score:3)

    by slack_justyb ( 862874 ) on Thursday May 12, 2022 @01:20PM (#62526632)

    I'm sure absolutely no one saw this coming and this news comes as a surprise to all.

    At the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, the decision was made to invest aggressively to deliver big growth in audience and revenue, and as a company we did not hit intermediate milestones that enable confidence in these goals.

    So scapegoats? Got'cha. Social media turning a profit is a lie and now that we have governments the world around that want to stick their fingers into it, quadruple so.

    • I thought most companies reward senior execs with big bonuses, etc, even when zero milestones are hit or company is in a downward trajectory (we need to pay more to attract execs now since execs don't want to join or stay in a company which looks like it may crash and burn)..

      I guess this time they really needed a scapegoat, so a couple of sacrificial execs were cast off.

      I don't see the size of the golden parachutes mentioned in the article, but am sure they would have been sizable so that they stay quiet as

  • That's the plan? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by flippy ( 62353 ) on Thursday May 12, 2022 @01:29PM (#62526662) Homepage
    "Twitter's plans to add 100 million daily users" - does someone at the company actually think there are 100 million people who want to be on Twitter but aren't already?
  • Here's our plan get 100 million new members on a platform where people follow controversial people.
    • Step #1: Ban all controversial users.
    • Step #2: ...
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Twitter went public in 2013, opening trading at $45. Today, 9 years later, the stock is $44.

    The firing isnâ(TM)t due to politics, but the fact they havenâ(TM)t been fired long before now is the politics problem. The entire company has failed up until now and every exec is deserving of being fired.

    Twitter does not exist to be a political arm of the extreme left. They exist to be a profitable business serving the consumer equitably - hopefully they will finally fulfill that mission.

    • I wouldn't mind an executive salary in this "failing" company.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dan667 ( 564390 )
      twitter will now exist to allow trump to demand for a new Jan 6th storming of congress. That is what you mean, right?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        Does it have to be January 6th? Stormings are more popular when it's warm out.

      • Re: (Score:3, Troll)

        by jwhyche ( 6192 )

        You know, I keep hearing where Trump tweeted for people to storm the congress on Jan 6. But for some strange reason I can't find that tweet. Not on twitter or on my google searches. Could you please provide a link to the tweet?

          • Re:Long overdue executive firings⦠(Score:4)

            by jwhyche ( 6192 ) on Thursday May 12, 2022 @07:26PM (#62527934) Homepage

            Try again. Not one tweet in that list has anything to do with Jan. 6th.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by d0ran$ ( 844234 )

              The tweet is
              Peter Navarro releases 36-page report alleging election fraud 'more than sufficient' to swing victory to Trump https://t.co/D8KrMHnFdK [t.co] . A great report by Peter. Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!

              See https://www.nytimes.com/2021/0... [nytimes.com]
              https://www.politifact.com/art... [politifact.com]

              • Re: (Score:3)

                by jwhyche ( 6192 )

                Nice try but no cigar. No tweet in that list says anything about storming the capital on Jan 6th, again. You can post all the links to files that say that is what he said but so far you have not posted one tweet that comes exactly from Donny.

                Again, post the link where he says "storm the capital and stop the election", or something to that line.

  • Always. You'd think working Americans would learn that and stop allowing them.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jythie ( 914043 )
      I don't think people who actually work get a say in the matter.

    • Buyouts === Layoffs. Always. You'd think working Americans would learn that and stop allowing them.

      You'd think others would learn that you don't buy out strong, healthy, well functioning companies. They don't represent an opportunity. You want the f'ups, the hot messes, that have a real potential market that they are serving poorly. That is where the opportunities are.

    • Allowing them? Unless they have an ownership stake what entitles them to a say? Unless you are suggesting using strength in numbers to rob the real owners like a mugger uses a gun.

      The layoffs that come with mergers and buyouts are frustrating but they are a given. The buyer obviously thinks something can be done leaner or better at the company and in the case of mergers there will be many redundancies.

  • Not just Twitter. But Social Media Idea is broke (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Thursday May 12, 2022 @02:21PM (#62526868)

    The problem with traditional Media, News Papers, Radio, TV is that they are slaves to the Companies that pay them to advertise. (Or the Grants and underwriters for Public media) If they bite the hand that feeds them, the advertisers will just switch to a different venue that will take their money and be nice to them.
    So you may get a news article on how the Owner of a dealership who scammed you into a crappy car, with a service plan that you can never use, because of fine print, about how much of a humanitarian they are, because they funded a local baseball team of special need kids.

    So people got sick of this bias news, so they turned to Social Media. Figuring because anyone can state what is happening, the truth will be reviled.

    However these platforms make their money off of advertising as well. However, while they may not need to be bias, because they they can target ads to people who are more receptive to them, they have favored ads around posts that get a lot of traffic and are shared and reposed, because such ads would get a lot more views and impressions. So your post on how scammy that car dealer was, would probably not get too much attention, and will shortly just fall on the bottom of the page within a few minutes. However your re-post about the Baseball team will attract more interest and then that dealership will attach their ads to your post.

    Now so far this isn't much different... Then people figured out they can post stuff no matter how well researched it is, and people will fall for it, and share it, because it often gets their blood to boil for or against it, and they will generate more and more revenue.

    A long article with paragraphs taking a more closer look at a topic, will never get the views, however the quick message and a picture with a logical unsound statement, will convince enough for it to spread.

    • Excellent comment, I would mod you up if I had points. You link our information problems with advertising in both "traditional" and "social" media and then point out that the latter as a solution to the former is in many ways worse. You nailed it in my view.

      Question is, what would an alternative (that removes the advertising imperative) look like? Easy answer is "pay for your content", but it seems that is a hard sell (always has been). I don't know the answer, but curious as to whether you have thoughts

      • I wish I had a good alternative, but I don't.
        Government funded, is just a scary concept, as it will just encourage those in power to stay in power.
        A ministry of Truth is chilling as well, that determine what is true and not, will not be effective for digging up what is new.
        Even individual payed content well just have the industry reporting what you want to hear.

        I think the best solution which isn't perfect is to have the news, entertainment and advertising companies to be legally and financially responsible

    • "...because anyone can state what is happening, the truth will be reviled."

      QFT

  • ...Twitter will be run by a Tesla autopilot.

  • I’m very concerned about billionaires like Musk buying media companies to manipulate public opinion. I wish an established media entity like the Washington Post bought twitter.

  • Destabilise Twitter, make advertisers jittery and let the new CEO go down in what he's clearly intending should be a sinking ship?

  • Is this so they can shitcan all the free-speech folks before Elon takes the reins? What is the *actual* reason for this? That street-shitting pro-censorship CEO should be the one on the chopping block. When is his last day?

  • As of today, twitter added a nagging popup wanting me to log in. I see that as a step toward making the site less useful by improving the reader tracking.

    Features I like about twitter compared to other social media are:
    - I don't have to log in. I can just type in https://twitter.com/NASAWebb [twitter.com] and see what's going on. i'm mostly read-only, so having to log in (like facebook) is just an unnecessary nuisance. Just like /., I only have to log in if I want to comment.
    - A few twitter users do post follower-only tw

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

      Maybe the popup is just you, or they're trying to figure out if you're a real person or robot. I haven't had a problem.

      Tweet - I'm Mr. Roboto?

  • Scam (Score:3)

    by shaitand ( 626655 ) on Friday May 13, 2022 @04:17AM (#62528794) Journal
    This probably activates some kind of golden parachute terms and gets people out of contracts. Basically it is a last minute move to screw Twitter and therefore Musk.

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