Twitter’s new, woke CEO has taken out the Chief Engineer and Chief Design Officer as he works to restructure Twitter following Jack Dorsey’s resignation.
Parag Agrawal took control of the $11 Billion company Monday and announced that he was making major changes in Twitter’s staff to improve company operations, accelerate growth, and streamline business processes.
As a result of his changes, the head of engineering Michael Montano and chief design officer Dantley Davis have stepped down from their lead roles and will leave the company on December 31, 2021, according to the US Securities and Exchange Commission filing reporting the move.
The company-wide email Agrawal wrote to employees explained his desire to unify those who were separated by their jobs and the corresponding teams. According to The Washington Post which only obtained it,
In an email, Agrawal stated to his staff that he plans to focus on “clear decision making, increased accountability, and quicker execution,” starting with “making a few organizational and leadership changes in order to best position us for our goals.”
Twitter’s Chief Engineer Michael Montano (left), and Dantley Davis, chief design officer (right) both have been removed from their posts as a result the restructuring by Parag Agrawal (new woke CEO).
Parag Agrawal, (pictured), has been promoted to his position as Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer for four years. He was previously the company’s $11billion CEO. This move came immediately after Jack Dorsey, 45 resigned via email.
Agrawal’s new changes will take effect on December 31, 2021. This was outlined in a filing by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (pictured).
Investors criticized Dorsey for not moving quickly enough on money-making developments. However, he insisted that the letter of resignation he sent to his co-founder and former CEO was genuine.
For example, before the shakeup, product designers, engineers and designers were organized in teams like consumer product, research, and revenue.
He said, “We have all talked about the need to increase operational rigor. It must begin at the top.”
Although Agrawal was thought to be a passive leader by his predecessor, his resignation on Monday still surprised many when Agrawal, 37, appointed him as the CEO. Agrawal was previously serving as Twitter’s chief tech officer.
Agrawal also stated that Agrawal’s nomination was unanimous after an extensive process in which all options were considered.
Dorsey stated that he has a great deal of trust in Dorsey as his CEO. He made sure that he noted his one wish for Twitter Inc, before signing off.
Agrawal seems to be getting right to it and Twitter spokesman Liz Kelley confirmed that the changes to the organizational shift were Agrawal’s decision, which is the only reason Montano and Davis’ chose to leave the company, according to The Post.
The news was tweeted by both of them Friday afternoon.
‘An unbelievable ride. Montano shared his deep gratitude. Davis responded, saying: “I love Twitter and its people!” It was an honor to be a part of this journey.
As stated by his LinkedIn profile Montano was the engineering chief at Twitter starting in 2011. BackType was also his company for marketing intelligence, and it was bought by Twitter by Montano when he joined their team over a decade ago.
In 2019, Davis began his career with Twitter. He was previously the Netflix product designer before joining Facebook as the Design Director.
According to The Post, Davis was the first Black Twitter executive to directly report to the CEO. He was also appointed to detoxify Twitter.
This reshuffle will combine previously separate functions into three new divisions: Core tech, consumer, and revenue. The new divisions will be headed respectively by Kayvon Beykpour and Bruce Falck (pictured with their wives), and Nick Caldwell. Beykpour was thought to be Dorsey’s successor. She is married to Sara Beykpour (Twitter’s senior product manager director), who announced Friday she would leave the company before her husband takes over his new role.
According to The Post, the reshuffling will consolidate previously-separate functions under three new divisions: Consumer, revenue and core tech, which will be headed by Kayvon Beykpour, Bruce Falck and Nick Caldwell, respectively.
As stated in the US Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the three men will now take on the titles of ‘General Manager.’
Beykpour, who was speculated to be Dorsey’s successor, is married to Twitter’s senior product management director Sara Beykpour, who announced Friday that she will leave the company at the end of the year before her husband steps into his new position.
Dalana brand, Twitter’s vice-president of people experience and head for inclusion and diversity will succeed Sara.
Kelley commented on the decision, saying that Parag views the growth of the company as an opportunity to improve clarity and cohesion in Twitter.
As reported by The Post, She mentioned Twitter Spaces (the social media site’s chat and live audio) as one feature which could be improved with collaboration among engineers, product managers and designers.
In his former role as head consumer product, Beykpour led the launch in November 2020 of Twitter Spaces. In August 2018, he also led the closing of Twitter Fleets, which enabled users to upload photos and videos, as well plain text, that vanished after 24 hours.
Agrawal, a Twitter veteran before taking on the title of CEO. Agrawal joined the company as a consultant in 2011, and was responsible for several social media site upgrades, while Dorsey led the brand.
Dorsey was the founder of Twitter, and became the first chief executive officer in 2007. He looked to Dorsey as his confidant for major decisions.
Agrawal has a net worth in excess of $1.52million after he rose through the Twitter ranks. He will now receive an $1million annual salary plus bonuses and restricted stock unit bonuses of up to $12.5 million. According Monday’s company reports.
Agrawal resides in San Francisco with Vineta, his wife, and their two-year old son Ansh. He even has his own Twitter account under @littleansh
Agrawal is a part of Dorsey’s vision for the platform to be completely decentralized or allow users more control over their data. This would enable them to connect buyers and sellers of crypto.
A decentralized cryptocurrency market would allow investors to trade directly with each others rather than using a third-party service like Twitter.
Agrawal as the new CEO will likely make calls about free speech matters. Followers on Twitter will monitor Agrawal’s actions closely. The controversy surrounding his predecessor’s ban of former president Donald Trump and the locking of account for the Indian National Congress drew strong backlash.
Agrawal spoke out on balance of the First Amendment and misinformation on the site in a 2020 interview for MIT Technology Review. He said that: ‘Our job is to promote healthy public conversations, and our actions reflect things we think will lead to a better public discussion.
In the interview, he also stressed that his job isn’t about making decisions on truth and falsity but rather fostering lively debates.
The father of one started his Twitter career on the engineering team. He was instrumental in creating targeted ads that skyrocketed Twitter’s revenue and became Dorsey’s lieutenant quickly, The New York Times reported.
Agrawal, who was responsible for building the site’s artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities in 2014, was also a crucial player in 2019 when he developed blockchain technologies.
Agrawal, despite being the brain behind Twitter’s most important moves, managed to remain low-profile. His 24,000-plus views were the minimum before he was appointed as CEO. The figure quickly grew to almost 300,000.
But, his followers are still far away from Dorsey’s 5,9 million.
According to The New York Times, he was responsible for the moderation of Twitter in 2019, known as Bluesky. This allows users to decide their moderation policies and use their algorithms to promote content.
Many people desire to join the solution. The only way for them is to find out how they can work with Twitter, or to make their community priority by working at a company such as ours. That’s some of the thinking and reasoning behind algorithmic choice,’ Agrawal added.
Agrawal’s twitter bio (above), already lists his new title. In a response to Dorsey’s resignation, the CEO wrote that he had walked in Dorsey’s shoes and shared his memories of his decade-long tenure at the company.
Agrawal’s record over his decade-long Twitter career, Dorsey said in Monday’s resignation email that Parag was behind all critical decisions that have helped to turn around the company.
Agrawal handed Dorsey the title of CEO to Agrawal, which suggests the leader will make faster decisions and implement change. This is something that Twitter investors have long criticized Dorsey for.
Agrawal’s product innovations have been steady, which made him a strong candidate to Dorsey when the time came for Dorsey’s retirement.
According to a source familiar with the process, insiders are critical of Twitter’s slow growth, particularly when compared to Facebook competitors, and they hope Agrawal’s arrival will help foster greater improvement.
Also, there were concerns over Dorsey’s decision to split his time between Square Inc and Twitter. Square Inc is the payments company of which he continues as CEO. Both of these companies have multimillion-dollar revenues.
Agrawal was promoted by Twitter. Some users were shocked, while others worried that Dorsey’s former CTO relationship meant the ex-founder wouldn’t be leaving the company.
Dorsey announced also that he will continue to be a member of the board for the rest of his term which expires in May-ish to assist Parag with his transition.
“And then… I’ll be leaving the board. Is it not possible to stay and become the chair of this board? It’s important that Parag has the freedom to be himself. To return to my earlier point, I think it is crucial that a company can be independent of its founders’ influence and direction. Dorsey also added this in his email resignation.
Agrawal was also mentioned as being unanimously appointed after the board had considered all possible options.
Agrawal is now the CEO. Twitter has announced this year that Agrawal would have to reach incredibly high targets as it seeks to double its annual revenues by 2023. It also plans to increase the number of monetizable daily users to 315million.
Dorsey stated that he has a great deal of trust in Dorsey as his CEO. He made sure that he noted his one wish for Twitter Inc, before signing off.
Dorsey, despite his niceties and a Monday letter explaining why he had not been pushed from the company, insisted that it was not. After explaining that he worked hard to make sure the company could separate from its founders and founders, Dorsey then praised himself by pointing out that there are few founders who choose their company above their ego.
In 2007, Dorsey became Twitter’s first chief executive officer. This was one year after Dorsey co-founded the social networking site. Agrawal, who had been the CEO of Twitter for more than 20 years, announced his resignation. Dorsey said, “My trust is in him as our chief executive officer”
It wouldn’t have been the first time Dorsey had been fired from his position as Twitter’s chief executive. He was fired in 2008 after he was accused of leaving early for yoga or fashion design. Instead, he preferred improving the site’s revenue.
Dorsey was appointed executive chairman on March 11, 2011. He later returned to the company when Dick Costolo became CEO.
While he will continue to serve on Twitter’s board through the end of his term (2022-2022), he will be stepping aside as chairperson. Current board member Bret T. Taylor will assume these responsibilities. Dorsey stated to staff that he will be leaving Twitter after his term is up.
The Times reports that Agrawal is now focused on cryptocurrency, just like his predecessor. He wants Twitter to decentralize more, as The Times reported.
His previous work included a shift in Twitter that allowed users to submit tips using cryptocurrency, including Bitcoin.
The Stanford University graduate was described by Dorsey as ‘curious, probing, rational, creative, demanding, self-aware and humble,’ while Kevin Quennesson, who oversaw Twitter’s machine learning efforts when Agrawal was promoted to CTO in 2017, told The Times that he would call the new executive ‘pragmatic’.
Quennesson stated, “As one the early engineers, they built strong internal relations over the past decade,”
According to Agrawal’s LinkedIn profile, he worked on research teams for AT&T, Microsoft and Yahoo! Before accepting the position at Twitter.
Vineeta, an Indian immigrant, now lives in San Francisco with her two-year old son Ansh. Ansh even has his own Twitter account under the name @littleansh.
Agrawal, in a Twitter reply to Dorsey’s resignation on Monday, addressed his employees as he thought back about 10 years ago when the company had less than 1000 employees.
He wrote: “I’ve been in your shoes. I have seen all the things you’ve gone through, including the victories, losses, challenges, obstacles and wins. Some of you are just as familiar with me, others not so much. Let’s start at the beginning.
Agrawal took the job immediately. Republicans on the App criticized him for tweets in the past where the CEO claimed Twitter was not bound by the First Amendment.