New Twitter boss wants the company to move faster
The new CEO of Twitter, Parag Agrawal, has a clear message: expect the social network to move much faster than it has done in the past.
In his first public appearance since taking the reins of Twitter from co-founder Jack Dorsey, Agrawal says his top priority is to “improve our implementation” and streamline how Twitter operates. His comments, given at Barclay’s technology conference, come after activist investor Elliott Management shook up Twitter’s board last year and pressured Dorsey to resign from his part-time CEO. Dorsey remains CEO of Block (formally called Square).
Despite being Twitter’s CEO for just nine days, Agrawal has already made major changes to the top ranks. He reorganized the company last Friday under the main pillars of Consumer, Revenue and Core Tech, with a general manager running each division. “I think we’ve set them up so they can move really fast,” he says now. As part of the change, two executives who previously reported to Dorsey – engineer Michael Montano and Dantley Davis, head of design and research – plan to leave at the end of December.
“We previously operated in a functional structure where we had a single engineering organization, a single design research organization and product teams that were matrixed into them,” says Agrawal, suggesting that the setup slowed the company down. Along with the three new general managers – who are Kayvon Beykpour, Bruce Falck and Nick Caldwell – Lindsey Iannucci was appointed VP of Operations. “She is going to help us improve our operational rigor in this new structure to really get us to faster decision making, clearer ownership, increased accountability, improved operations, which will result in faster implementation in general and better results,” according to Agrawal .
His focus on speed was a recurring theme throughout the approximately 30-minute interview. He explained how in his previous role as technology manager he focused on rebuilding the company’s old technical stack so that the products could be shipped faster. He admitted that there have been “slow decisions due to so much coordination that had to happen” between the teams to get changes out the door. His comments were a direct recognition that Twitter has not met investors’ expectations since it was listed on the stock exchange, and that the company has been slow to address changes in user behavior over the years.
When asked about Twitter’s just announced acquisition of the messaging app Quill, Agrawal called instant messaging “a key product game” – a refreshing feeling given that DMs have been sadly underdeveloped for a long time. “The opportunity around DMs is really the key,” he said, adding that “it’s a way you can connect with anyone in the world and expect to hear back from them.”
