Jack Dorsey, Twitter's most recognizable co-founder, has stepped down once again from his role as CEO.
The 45-year-old tech entrepreneur notified the public about his second departure in a tweet that included his resignation letter.
I decided that it was time for me to leave. Dorsey wrote in his letter. There is a lot of talk about the importance of a company being founded. I believe that is a very limiting point of failure. While Dorsey s resignation may come as a shock to Twitter users who have grown used to seeing the businessman take a hands-on approach with the social network, he is not cutting ties with the company at all. Dorsey will be a member of the board of directors on Twitter until his term ends at the May 2022 meeting of stockholders, a company news release states.
Who will lead the conversation on Twitter?
Dorsey is being replaced by Agrawal, who joined Twitter in 2011 as a distinguished software engineer and rose up the ranks to become the company's chief technology officer in 2017.
Agrawal has been responsible for the Company's technical strategy, leading work to improve development velocity while advancing the state of Machine Learning across the company, according to Twitter. Agrawal's work in revenue and consumer engineering was highlighted in Twitter's news release and credited for the re-acceleration of audience growth in 2016 and 2017. Agrawal is going to take over the CEO role immediately, according to Twitter. Before he got a software engineer position at Twitter, Agrawal held research positions at other multimedia tech companies, including AT&T Labs, Microsoft and Yahoo. The newly named CEO of Twitter holds a bachelor's degree and Ph. D. in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and Stanford University. Agrawal, 37, is the youngest CEO to lead an S&P 500 company.
Bret Taylor, a computer programmer and entrepreneur who is not a member of the company, will be the new chairman of the board of Twitter.
Taylor, 42, is replacing Patrick Pichette, the ex-Google CFO who became Twitter's board chair in 2020. Taylor is not guiding Twitter's board when he is working on other tech revenue-generating projects as the president and chief operating officer of Salesforce.
In 2006, Twitter started with founders Dorsey, Biz Stone, Evan Williams and Noah Glass, who all happened to be friends. According to a report by Lifewire, the microblogging network was created by a brainstorming session at Williams and Glass, a co-founded podcasting company, Odeo.
The first tweet went up on March 21, 2006, by Dorsey and said, just setting up my twttr. The test post has earned over 121,600 retweets and likes.
Glass, who was reportedly an essential software developer for Twitter in the early stages of the company, was excluded from further projects after Dorsey, Stone and Williams facilitated a buyback from Twitter's first group of investors. From 2006 to 2008, Dorsey took over the role of CEO and became Twitter's president and CEO from 2009 to 2010, while Stone became the co-founder of Twitter's culture, according to USA Today.
In 2007 after the festival South by Southwest SXSW, Twitter took off as a social network, where more than 60,000 tweets were sent per day at the event, according to Lifewire. In the beginning, Twitter allowed only 140 characters. The character limit was increased to 280 after a decade.
According to the company's third quarter earnings report for 2021, Twitter has approximately 211 million active users.
On November 7, 2013, Twitter made its debut in the stock market with an initial public offer of $26 a piece. The trading open was $45.10 and the trading close was $44.90.
In a press release that covered fourth quarter earnings, which was a self-reported $3.72 billion, Twitter announced its total annual revenue for the fiscal year 2020. This amount isn't something to laugh at, but it is far from Facebook's reported $85.965 billion in total revenue for the same period.
According to the NASDAQ, Twitter's market cap is approximately $34.67 billion.
Besides its own business ventures, Twitter has made numerous acquisitions and mergers. Many of Twitter purchases were in different domain names in the early days. The company went on to purchase larger social media and tech brands with digital influence.
In its short time of being a media giant, Twitter has acquired 66 brands, and that number is sure to grow, according to a report by Crunchbase. Two of its most notable acquisitions include the Live Video streaming app Periscope and the now-defunct short-form video app Vine Lifecycle: 2013 to 2017