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Jack Dorsey leaves Twitter's board of directors

169 points| HiroProtagonist | 3 years ago |axios.com

159 comments

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[+] motohagiography|3 years ago|reply
While the article doesn't mention whether he's selling his shares as a part of the exit from the board, wouldn't this be just the best time to sell his shares without significantly underming other investors? Charitably, when you are the largest individual shareholder you're kind of stuck, and this is a great time to extricate himself from risking the stock tanking everytime he needs liquidity as leverage for something else.

Not to diminish the other shenanigans afoot in this whole transition, but Dorsey leaving the board seems like the least suspicious of everything else flying around. Having founders around at this late stage is also disruptive to any new regime. It's like a royal family whose existence acts as a percieved limit on the absolute sovereignty of a government, since if there's a slim chance to appeal to them, people will act like they can at critical moments. Twitter is a thing, it's not a person or a community, and his exit hopefully will let people look at the business more objectively.

[+] mise_en_place|3 years ago|reply
At CEO/founder level I'd imagine one could only attend so many board meetings. Consider how many boards he is a part of, it would be hard to attend each and every one, especially for public companies.
[+] strangattractor|3 years ago|reply
No surprise there - he has been trying to distance himself for some time. Not surprising they agreed to sell so fast. Now it will Musk's headache (seriously doubt the deal will go through). Musk's twitter obsession is ruining his reputation. Owning this turd will likely accelerate that.
[+] gernb|3 years ago|reply
Everyone has their own ideas of what would save twitter or make it stop sucking.

For me:

* Let me opt out of all recommendations. I only want to see tweets of people I follow or tags I follow. Nothing else. I'll find more people to follow via the people I follow. Do not post random popular news, people, related stuff in my feed, period.

* Let me choose the types of tweets I see. Personally I want to see zero of (@person liked, @person replied to, ...)

* Remove the 280 character limit (but possibly only show the first N characters in the feed). I don't personally believe the 280 character limit is important to twitter's success. Twitter's difference from most other places is that people are talking from their account, in public. It's one giant flat public forum. It is not FB (friends and family) and it is not Reddit (moderated sub forums). That alone is it's strength. All the 280 character thing does is amplify hyperbole as there is on room for nuance.

I'm sure Musk has his own ideas (no censorship?) but as for me, I won't personally use twitter without the changes above. I have an account, I check about once a month or less. I see lots of the stuff above and quit. It's like having a pushy salesperson following you around and constantly recommending stuff. Rather than more sales I'd just leave for another store.

[+] vkou|3 years ago|reply
Musk never wanted to buy Twitter he just wanted cover for dumping his Tesla stock ahead of the downturn.
[+] HWR_14|3 years ago|reply
I'm curious why you doubt the deal is going to go through.
[+] xwdv|3 years ago|reply
People shit on Musk, but that only makes the potential for massive gains to his reputation even greater if he actually is able to turn Twitter around and make it into a respectable social network again. People like you, will eat crow.
[+] rufusroflpunch|3 years ago|reply
I am very excited to see what Jack can do solely focused on Bitcoin.
[+] natly|3 years ago|reply
Kind of crazy how fast this guys' reputation has been cleaned up despite being the main cause for the mess that twitter has been up until when paraga took over only a few months ago.
[+] strangattractor|3 years ago|reply
Maybe he can help get Bitcoin to zero:0
[+] wslh|3 years ago|reply
Be part of an existing religion.
[+] strangattractor|3 years ago|reply
Maybe he can do for Bitcoin what he did for the Public Square - turn it into a bunch of loud mouthed anonymous trolls that shutdown anyone that disagree with them. Wait Bitcoin already is that.
[+] boomskats|3 years ago|reply
Can't think of a better time to sell up! Smart move.
[+] daenz|3 years ago|reply
>What's next: Dorsey's next move remains unclear.

Do founders ever feel regret when they walk away from what they became known for? If you still have drive after you leave, I imagine there is a lot of pressure to reproduce your first success.

EDIT>>Removing reference to Dorsey only having one major success.

[+] eterevsky|3 years ago|reply
One example is Pavel Durov. He created VK, which became the most popular social network in Russia. It was taken over by government-aligned oligarchs. Pavel left Russia and started Telegram which became even more successful.
[+] radicaldreamer|3 years ago|reply
He also runs Square, which is arguably more successful
[+] polote|3 years ago|reply
When you leave something you have put so much effort in, and the future doesn't look good then you feel regret. When the future looks good you are usually proud.

But no, you don't feel pressure to build it again. Because first this is a lot of work and second it is not even likely that you will succeed again at it. Especially in b2c

[+] bobsmooth|3 years ago|reply
Tom from Myspace seems to be doing well. I think he's an outlier though.
[+] pbreit|3 years ago|reply
Jack's at least a 2-hit wonder. Maybe 3 if you count Block's new direction.
[+] pfisherman|3 years ago|reply
For all the love that Action Jack gets, never forget that he had the foresight to shut down Vine.
[+] hunterb123|3 years ago|reply
Never heard anyone refer to Dorsey as Action Jack.

If you're making a SV reference, Jack Barker (Action Jack) is largely based on Jack Welch (Neutron Jack)

[+] bluejekyll|3 years ago|reply
Is this a comment about TikTok?
[+] oh_sigh|3 years ago|reply
What exactly does someone like Dorsey do on the board of directors?
[+] anonu|3 years ago|reply
Weigh in on important decisions.