Change of guard at Twitter indicates focus on growth, innovation

The news: There's a massive change taking place in Parag Agrawal’s Twitter. Barely a week into his new leadership, the company is restructuring to “drive increased accountability, speed, and operational efficiency,” per The Verge.

Why this matters: Twitter’s founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey stepped down last week after years of running both the social network and his payments company, Square. 

• Dorsey, who was replaced by Twitter CTO Agrawal, faced flak from investors and Twitter’s board for being an absentee figurehead while Twitter’s business stagnated.
• Agrawal is moving quickly. He announced a change in the management structure for product and engineering—the vital cogs of the Twitter platform.
• Engineering lead Michael Montano and head of design and research Dantley Davis will both step down at the end of the year, marking the exit of Twitter’s top executives from the Dorsey era.
• Twitter said the reorganization is meant to speed up the company’s decision-making. “Parag is focused on operational excellence and setting Twitter up to hit its goals; these changes were made with that in mind,” Twitter spokesperson Laura Alexander told The Verge.

The bigger picture: Agrawal’s mandate to overhaul Twitter’s leadership reflects a change of culture and addresses the lack of innovation that has plagued Twitter. In context, Twitter, which has 211 million active daily users globally, posted a net loss of $1.1 billion in 2020, which was the company’s first annual loss since 2017.

• The restructuring consolidates traditionally separate functions of engineering, design, and product development into three new divisions: consumer, revenue, and core tech. Those division leads will report directly to the CEO.
• With new blood and a renewed sense of purpose, Twitter can now focus on innovating its platform while solving various legacy issues with disinformation.