Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey, is to return full-time to lead product development after being ousted from the company as chief executive back in 2008. He is set to replace fellow co-founder Evan Williams, who will remain on the board, but has taken a step back from daily involvement with Twitter.
Chief executive Dick Costolo appropriately tweeted the announcement, writing that he was “excited” by the return. Mr Dorsey followed up the tweet, saying that he was “thrilled”. As for one of Dorsey’s other endeavours, a mobile payments service called Square, he says he intends to remain chief executive of the firm located near Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters.
Twitter released a company statement saying that “As executive chairman, Jack will dive into work with more than 450 people, led by an experienced executive team. The timing is fortuitous; not only is Twitter experiencing record growth, but we also now have a new infrastructure that will keep us ahead of that growth and enable us to launch products that will make Twitter more instant, simple and always present,” the statement said.
This is a timely shift in personnel for the information and communications platform that last week celebrated its fifth birthday. Despite the phenomenal take up by around 200 million users, the company faces challenges ahead as it proves itself to be a profitable business.