Things are changing at Twitter. (And when are they not?) Now, just three months after cofounder Jack Dorsey became Twitter’s permanent CEO, four of the company’s ten senior managers announced they are leaving.
The shakeup comes as Dorsey attempts to revive growth at the stalled social media company. Twitter's struggles are numerous and well known, but the gist is: Though plenty of media personalities use Twitter daily, from presidential candidates to rock stars to journalists—so many journalists!–new people aren’t signing on. Twitter reported 307 million monthly active users last quarter, a growth of only three percent over the past quarter. (This number excludes “fast followers,” who follow Twitter on SMS.) Its stock has lost 55 percent of its value in the past 12 months, prompting constant speculation that company will be acquired.
Since Dorsey returned to Twitter and joined his first earnings call in July, he has criticized the company’s failure to make Twitter more popular. It’s not a surprise, then, that two of the departing execs are Alex Roetter, who was in charge of engineering, and product head Kevin Weil. After all, engineering and product are the teams responsible for developing features that should entice new users to try the service, help them get more value out of it, and stick around longer.
In addition, Katie Jacobs Stanton, who leads media partnerships, announced on Medium that she plans to leave to spend time with her family. During her five-and-a-half year tenure at the company, Stanton helped open offices around the world, beginning in the UK, Japan and Ireland.
Dorsey confirmed the departures in a late Sunday tweet, and said vice president of human resources Skip Schipper will also leave. Schipper came to Twitter in 2014 from Groupon, where he was head of public relations. Dorsey said all four executives were leaving by choice, contrary to earlier reports indicating some were fired.
While Dorsey looks for their replacements, chief operating officer Adam Bain will take over duties for revenue-related products, human resources and media. Meanwhile chief technology officer Adam Messinger will handle engineering and consumer products, as well as design and research, user services and the company’s mobile development platform, Fabric. “I will be partnering with him day and night to make sure we’re building the right experiences,” Dorsey wrote, who will presumably do this while also remaining CEO of Square.
Dorsey is expected to make numerous other personnel changes in the coming weeks. Twitter is close to naming a new chief marketing officer, according to Recode. And it will also add two people to its eight-member board of directors in an announcement that may come as early as next quarter, according to media reports. In October, Dorsey named former Googler Omid Kordestani executive chairman. Twitter did not immediately return requests for comment.
Twitter’s constant senior turnover has become a mainstay of its corporate culture, a characteristic as defining to the company as its 140-character Tweets. (Consider that Weil is Twitter’s fifth head of product in six years.) Dorsey hopes to lose both. To confirm the changes, he tweeted a three-paragraph screenshot—a reminder that, if Dorsey has his way, both executive turnover and the 140-character limit will soon be history.
