The "row change" on Twitter
The resignation of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter in 2006, took effect immediately. Mr. Dorsey will continue to serve on the board until his term expires at the 2022 annual meeting of shareholders, Twitter said.
In an email to employees on November 29, Mr. Dorsey said he chose to resign because he believed in the strength of Mr. Agrawal's leadership, the appointment of Salesforce Bret Taylor as the new chairman of the board, and his confidence in the "ambition and potential" of his Twitter staff.
"I'm really sad but really happy," he wrote. The co-founder of Twitter noted, "not many companies have achieved this level" and his resignation was a personal decision and he took the initiative in this decision.
We have recently updated our strategy to achieve ambitious goals and I believe that strategy is bold and correct, Mr. Agrawal stated in an email to employees.
The source told Reuters that Dorsey is now focusing on leading Square and other goals such as charity. Twitter's board of directors has been preparing for Dorsey's departure since last year, the source added.
Who is the new CEO of Twitter?
Parag Agrawal, 37, who has just become the head of Twitter, has become the latest Indian-origin talent to lead a major technology company in the US, following prominent figures such as CEO Sundar Pichai of Google and CEO Satya Nadella of Microsoft, according to AFP.
As of November 29, Mr. Agrawal has only about 24,000 followers on Twitter, much lower than the nearly 6 million followers of his predecessor Dorsey.
I know that some of you know me well, some just a little, and some dont, Agrawal said in an email to 5,500 San Francisco-based Twitter staff.
Writing about Agrawal in a message to a Twitter employee, Mr. Dorsey said: "He is behind every important decision that helps turn the company around."
"He leads with all my heart and soul, and he is the person I learn from every day. I have a strong trust in him as our CEO," Dorsey added.
The new Twitter CEO trained in computer science and engineering at the Bombay Institute of Technology in India and has a PhD from Stanford University in California, USA. Agrawal joined Twitter in 2011 and then became the company's technology director in 2017.
Twitter's ambition
Reuters said that the appointment of Agrawal as the new CEO of Twitter shows that the company has chosen technology as a top priority.
The new CEO of Agrawal has not only helped lead the integration of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology into Twitter, while pursuing a long-term ambition of rebuilding the way social media companies operate.
As Twitter's chief technology officer, he oversees machine learning and artificial intelligence, as well as the company's extensive technical strategy. Agrawal is also a key figure in Bluesky - a Twitter-funded organization that is looking to build a common decentral standard for social media companies. This standard will allow different social platforms to operate on the same technology and allow users to post content across services. Bluesky's work is expected to take many years to complete.
In addition, investors are now hoping that Mr. Agrawal's technical capabilities will help develop Twitter's advertising engine, according to analysts from Baird Equity Research. Most of Twitter's revenue comes from selling ads on its website and apps.
According to experts, Twitter's ability to provide targeted ads to boost product sales has long since fallen behind Facebook. Twitter also previously confirmed that it will seek to develop the advertising segment that accounts for 15% of the company's business operations to 50%.
