[gameofcode]

Jack Dorsey's been pretty active on the podcast scene recently, and I feel it's harder to fake your personality in multiple long form conversations. I never got a hint of arrogance from him.

On a side note, why do people love to paint being the CEO of two companies in such a bad light? How is it different to a CEO of a conglomerate having responsibility for multiple divisions?

[dan-robertson]

Generally shareholders would prefer a ceo whose incentives are aligned with those of the company. On the one hand maybe it’s good that Dorsey could fuck off from twitter if things went bad and not suffer too much from it: it allows him to take risks and ceos not wanting to take reasonable risks as much as shareholders would like (because they have a undiversified interest in their company doing well but more importantly not doing badly whereas shareholders are typically more diversified and so can accept a bigger loss) is a known issue with many public companies. On the other hand, if he can fuck off and do ok if things go bad, maybe he is less motivated to stop them going bad.

A second issue is that people may feel that he will not be able to do the job properly if he is splitting his time between companies, and twitter have to care about the opinions of their shareholders and their users and their advertisers and their employees. Any of those groups may feel this. A main part of the job of the CEO will be deciding what the companies values are and making sure they are reflected by the firm’s actions. For Twitter at the moment this seems like a harder job than for many companies so possibly it would be even harder than usual to be a part-time CEO.

[aspenmayer]

He’s uniquely qualified to run the company:

1) he founded it;

2) he doesn’t depend on it for his own livelihood;

3) he has enough time and space; physically, mentally, financially, and computationally to have proper distance from the company; and

4) Twitter is essentially feature-complete.

[wpietri]

When you say "never a hint of arrogance" you mean aside from him deciding to run a public company/major social media platform in his spare time? That it'd be fine to give something with 300 million users a half-hearted effort?

Unfortunately my Twitter NDA prevents me from giving details. But happily, I didn't sign the non-disparagement clause, so I don't think I can get in trouble for saying that I am very happy I no longer work at Twitter, and that I'd definitely not return while he was CEO.

I will grant, though, that he's excellent at performing reasonableness. He is particularly good at the humble apology for whatever Twitter's latest failure is, as well as the promise to do better next time. I could even believe he means it. In the moment, anyhow.

[nexuist]

> That it'd be fine to give something with 300 million users a half-hearted effort?

Is Twitter not free? What does Jack owe anyone? He didn't force you to sign up for anything. He didn't force you to work for him either. I am sympathetic if you were somehow swindled through the hiring process as too many people are, but otherwise, it seems more arrogant to demand that this one man spend his time however you see fit vs. doing whatever he wants. Clearly the way he spends his time is working for him or else he wouldn't be in his position.

[wpietri]

Of course it's working for him. That he values that over the impact on others is a sign of arrogance.

Nobody's demanding that he spend his time in a particular way. He is welcome to head off for a year-long silent meditation in Burma for all I care. But plenty of people are saying that Twitter deserves a CEO who's focused on the job. Twitter, as a key social-media platform and a network-effects business, is not something where people can choose among a variety of approximately equivalent providers. He's half-assing it, and the world deserves better.

[jpxw]

The answer to your question is simply “envy”.

[sidlls]

That's a pretty thoughtless response.

Very few people have the privilege of being an employee with the perks of the CEO, let alone for multiple companies.

In fact, in the white collar world at least, "moonlighting" is definitely frowned upon, and in many places still outright banned.

And that's just the start.

[ttwinder]

>Jack Dorsey's been pretty active on the podcast scene recently, and I feel it's harder to fake your personality in multiple long form conversations. I never got a hint of arrogance from him

I do this all day, every day at work. Pretty sure most of us do to some degree. It's really not hard to put on a near perfect professional mask for extended periods of time, though it can be exhausting for some people.