Of us at Twitter previous and current are sturdy and resilient. They’ll all the time discover a method regardless of how troublesome the second. I notice many are indignant with me. I personal the accountability for why everyone seems to be on this scenario: I grew the corporate dimension too shortly. I apologize for that.
— jack (@jack) November 5, 2022
The layoffs seem to have reduce throughout your complete firm of seven,500 staff, devastating or in some instances wiping out the groups accountable for human rights, safety, curation and engineering. Amid Friday’s chaotic mass layoff, the platform was heavy with tweets from newly pink-slipped staff — a few of whom mentioned they realized their destiny the night time earlier than as a result of their e-mail log-ins not labored.
Workers tweeted notes of disappointment, gratitude and shock, with many utilizing the hashtag #lovewhereyouworked, a riff on the corporate’s unofficial motto “Love the place you’re employed.” One other hashtag, #TwitterLayoffs, shortly grew to become the highest of traits in america on Friday.
Dorsey’s mea culpa comes at a essential juncture for the corporate, which is one week right into a turbulent new period beneath Musk’s management that kicked off with him firing the manager management, together with the chief govt, Parag Agrawal. Advertisers and customers cautious of Musk’s plans are fleeing the platform, which is beneath new strain to develop income.
In response, Musk has floated concepts that embody making customers pay for the badges that determine them as a verified account. Musk has additionally expressed a imaginative and prescient of “free speech” on the platform that has civil rights teams and knowledge consultants anxious that the platform will turn into a haven for hate speech, misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Musk used his personal Twitter account to amplify a conspiracy idea in regards to the assault on Paul Pelosi, the husband of Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), to his greater than 113 million followers. He later withdrew the tweet.
Dorsey, who at occasions had his personal freewheeling strategy to management, abruptly stepped down as CEO final November. It was the second time Dorsey exited Twitter’s C-suite: the primary was in 2008, when he was fired as CEO two years after co-founding the microblogging web site. He was rehired in 2015.
Even earlier than Dorsey’s second run as CEO, Twitter struggled to make cash or shut the consumer and income hole with extra globally well-liked social media platforms like Fb, Instagram and TikTok. However regardless of its comparatively smaller consumer base, its core of elite customers throughout industries like sports activities, leisure, politics and journalism made it a extremely seen place to make and break information.
Throughout a lot of Dorsey’s time at Twitter’s helm, he confronted questions on transparency and the way the corporate promoted or suppressed info, together with political messaging; Twitter grew to become a frequent goal of conservative criticism throughout the Trump period when former president Donald Trump and his supporters accused “Massive Tech” like Twitter of censoring conservative voices — regardless of analysis exhibiting that Twitter algorithms amplified conservative content material over that of the political left.
As with Saturday’s apology, Dorsey has typically mused on his regrets and errors by way of Twitter: Earlier this yr he indicated that shutting down the beloved video clip platform, Vine, was his “largest mistake” and mentioned he feels responsible about his function in constructing Twitter into one of many main hubs of a centralized web.
“[C]entralizing discovery and identification into firms actually broken the web. I notice I’m partially in charge, and remorse it,” he tweeted in April.
However the largest criticism of Dorsey close to the top of his run got here from different board members who have been involved he was too distracted by plans to journey the world, transfer to Africa and most importantly, serving concurrently as CEO for Twitter and Sq., the web cost system that final yr rebranded as Block; he stays head of the latter.
After Twitter’s $44 billion sale to Musk this fall, Dorsey retained a 2.4 % share in Twitter, based on an October submitting with the Securities and Alternate Fee
