Jack Dorsey is stepping down as CEO of Twitter

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Jack Dorsey is stepping down as CEO of Twitter

Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, announced that he will be stepping down as CEO of the company. According to a statement released on Monday, Dorsey will be ceding his position to the company's chief technology officer Parag Agrawal.

Dorsey said that his trust in Agrawal is deep as Twitter's CEO, as well as his work in the company in the past 10 years has been transformational. He said he decided to leave Twitter because he believes the company is ready to move on from its founders.

The market was strongly reacted to the news of Dorsey leaving the company he founded in 2006. Twitter shares fell by 3.4% this morning in New York after lagging behind other tech giants for the better part of the year.

Mandeep Singh, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said that investors recognized that having one man head two companies wasn't very effective in terms of execution. He said that with Dorsey gone, Twitter should be on track to meet the ambitious monetization goals set last year.

The company plans to double its annual revenue to $7.5 billion by the year 2023 and increase its user base by an average of almost 20% in each of the next three years, according to Bloomberg.

Dorsey is the head of Square, a popular payment app, and has been focused on the market and expanding the app to Africa. Dorsey came under pressure last year from Twitter's largest shareholder, Elliott Management Corp., for spending too much time away from the company. With his focus on Square and the exponential growth both in value and the number of users that it experienced last year, Twitter s board of directors cracked down on Dorsey.

In an agreement with Elliott Management Corp. private equity group Silver Lake appointed three new directors to Twitter's board and created a committee that would review Dorsey's leadership and governance.

Dorsey maintains that leaving Twitter was his own decision. He said in an email sent to company employees that he will continue serving on Twitter's board of directors until his term ends in May 2022, after which he will cut all ties with the company.