Image prompt: “The Twitter bird under attack but standing valiantly against its adversaries in a style trending on artstation”
Twitter is one of the most impactful digital platforms on the face of the Earth. That is why I made the decision at the end of 2009 to leave Google to join Twitter in the beginning of 2010 when it was barely 100 total employees. I’m grateful for the privilege of having been able to work with passionate, thoughtful colleagues who worked hard to achieve Twitter’s potential in the world. We went through challenging times that still remain some of the most brutal but rewarding periods of my professional experience.
There’s been a mountain of criticism since Elon Musk officially acquired Twitter barely a week and a half ago on October 27, 2022. But I wanted to share some thoughts that likely won’t get much coverage in the media. For many reasons, this is not a defense of Elon, not the least of which he doesn’t need it. It’s my attempt to make sense of what has been happening in case it might be helpful for others.
Stop Focusing on Elon
First, the focus on Elon is misplaced. He’s a visible and polarizing figure, and happens to be an active Twitter user. This makes him a perfect subject for media to focus on, but don’t let the media agenda be your agenda. Many of the learning opportunities won’t be covered in the media.
The second reason that the current focus on Elon is misplaced is that very few of Twitter’s current problems have anything to do with him. Spam, abuse, impersonation, and misinformation were present a decade ago.1 Arguably if the company managed this better, the potential to improve Twitter may not have come to Elon’s attention as acutely as it did.2 Moreover, critics have long observed the slow speed of innovation at Twitter. The current state of Twitter is much more the output of its recent executives than the new Chief Twit and Complaint Hotline Operator, who has been officially on the job for less than 10 days.
The reality is that companies do not become PE buyout targets overnight. Offers are usually preceded by many years of missed opportunity, and Twitter is no exception. Due to the public nature of Twitter , however, the missed opportunities were laid bare for all to see. As Jack summarized:
“It comes down to three critiques: we’re slow, we’re not innovative and we’re not trusted,”
The Need for a Reset
There are a few learnings that are being drowned out by the immediate media furor. Usually the reward for missing opportunities is being disrupted by a more nimble, usually smaller, competitor.3 The fact that no viable competitor has arisen despite languishing innovation is a credit to the strength of the network effects that Twitter has built.
But this past week we witnessed the very real, and unfortunate casualty of mismanaged opportunities as half of the Twitter team was laid off. While the magnitude and manner in which it was conducted is the responsibility of the new owner, the inevitability is hardly in question especially given the macro environment.4 Many years of missed opportunities have real consequences, and unfortunately the cost of mismanagement is being borne by individuals who were let go. Even as I write this post, however, it’s heartening to see acknowledgment beginning to surface:
Even where critics acknowledge problems pre-dated Elon, the desire to make him the main character leads to accusations that Elon is exacerbating Twitter’s problems by reducing staff. This is conventional thinking and is wrong. Here’s why:
Two of the most important tools available to a CEO are information and trust. The CEO must have accurate information on which to make decisions and trust that the executives hired can communicate (both ways) and execute the company’s strategy. A new CEO has neither and will need to take time to build both.
Image prompt: “Questionable information excreted through a byzantine sieve of incumbent interests.”
The problem is if you don’t have trust, it’s almost impossible to get accurate information. Companies often get big enough such that parts of the company begin to develop their own interests separate from the mission of the company. Left unchecked, these incumbent interests begin to prioritize its own survival and expansion.5 Without a deliberate effort to focus, organizational debt accrues over time, and the only information that reaches the CEO will be what gets excreted through a byzantine sieve of incumbent interests. So if you don't trust the leadership, it's impossible to trust the information being outputted.
It should be no surprise that Elon didn’t trust the leadership:
From @TechEmails
Without knowing the details, it’s plausible that incumbent interests and organizational debt prevented Twitter from fixing problems that were obvious to the outside. Typically, companies address cost-cutting RIFs by under-correcting.6 But when RIFs are driven by both cost-cutting and questions of fundamental trust and strategy, it's likely to involve both individual executives and entire teams.7 Because orgs tend to be matrixed in larger companies, there's a risk of over-correcting (letting go someone who was critical to a key project because they sat in another team that got RIF'd). One way to correct for that risk is to selectively opt those people back into the company on an individual basis, which appears to be happening.
Again, the outcome is unfortunate, but it underscores the responsibility for taking action sooner. If issues aren’t addressed with urgency, someone else may eventually come in and do it.
Return of Urgency
And that brings me to what I see as a hopeful sign—the return of urgency. As mentioned previously, Twitter has long been criticized for being stagnant. Many startups have been built in adjacent spaces (e.g. BeReal, Cameo, Substack, Clubhouse, TikTok), which shows the opportunity cost for Twitter failing to innovate.
There are signs of this changing. The team is currently preparing to launch its subscription service, Twitter Blue, by November 7 (and recently rolled back to November 9 to follow US mid-term elections). The photo of working conditions at “elon twitter” made the rounds:
Setting aside the controversy around hustle culture, the reason I found this hopeful for the future of Twitter was the explanation that Esther Crawford gave:
Teams “giving it their all” to launch something in a week directly contradicts the stigma that Twitter is slow to innovate. Moreover, teams that meet the challenge of launching product with constrained time and resources have a hard time returning to an endless cycle of product reviews and getting buy-in from every stakeholder. Talent at other companies who are motivated by the pace and prospect of launch will be more interested in joining. So even though it’s “not a normal moment in time” for Twitter, the impact will hopefully be long lasting.
I also believe the next phase of Twitter has the potential to counter the impression that tech companies are bloated and individuals are irrelevant.8 There's no shortage of interesting challenges ahead for them and potential elegant solutions that technology can provide. It will be the talented people who want to solve hard problems who can make it happen. Hopefully now they have an environment to launch.
#LoveWhereYouWork
I know many Tweeps and ex-Tweeps strongly oppose Elon’s takeover and disagree with his approach. But leadership disruption is not new to Tweeps. Twitter is under new leadership—again—and will likely face more changes to come.
Instead, Twitter’s biggest asset has always been the amazing people who care deeply about their work and impact on the world. The hashtags #OneTeam and #LoveWhereYouWork show how resilient and passionate they are (I’m still moved by how the team inspired the latter hashtag). The energy and talent they bring will continue to drive what’s best about Twitter.
I’m deeply grateful to the founders Jack, Ev and Biz, and along with Dick when CEO, and the various teams over time for making Twitter what it is today. There’s a new crew taking the reigns of the future of Twitter.9 Going forward, it may not be the Twitter we recognize, but here’s to hoping that’s a good thing.
There are attempts to discredit Twitter’s new verification proposal but they only reinforce how broken things already were:
Of course these scams were not solely on Twitter, but the fact is that Twitter is where Elon’s engagement and thus attention was.
In that scenario, everyone loses their job eventually. While TikTok and Snap were legitimate threats to Facebook and Instagram, I don’t believe there has been a viable competitor to Twitter as the global town square.
With companies like Stripe, Coinbase, Robinhood, Snap and Lyft doing layoffs, and hiring freezes at incumbents like Apple, Alphabet and Meta, it would be hard to expect Twitter to be immune to downsizing even without the change in ownership.
This is even worse with government regulations, non-profits, and other types of movements over time where there is no resetting/purging function and there is only one direction towards organizational bloat.
As many have observed, under-correcting incurs all the pain with very little gain.
Some have pointed out that Steve Jobs similarly reduced Apple’s staff when he returned as CEO:
Believing that conventional management had stifled innovation, Jobs, in his first year returning as CEO, laid off the general managers of all the business units (in a single day), put the entire company under one P&L, and combined the disparate functional departments of the business units into one functional organization.
There’s been an unfortunate rise of TikToks gloating the perks of working at tech companies. I say unfortunate because the best talents are motivated by tackling interesting and hard problems, and the marketing of perks on social media will not attract the talent they intend to target.
To indulge in a very American reference, the producer Lorne Michaels claims that every viewer’s favorite cast of Saturday Night Live happens to be the cast when that viewer was in high school. There’s maybe something similar for Tweeps who have our favorite Twitter team and leadership vintage. For me, it will be hard for anyone to be funnier than Dick.