In yet another unexpected turn of events, Twitter is today parting ways two more of its high-level executives. There can only be two possible explanations for the exits — either the company is going through a major crisis or it is ironing the seams to introduce a fresh vision for what’s to follow. It is currently inducing changes to present itself as more user-friendly.
Post the departure of COO Adam Bain, Twitter is losing its chief technology officer Adam Messinger and VP of Product Josh McFarland. It was announced – as expected – through individual tweets sent out by these prominent members of the company. While Messinger mentions that he’s moving out to take some time off, McFarland is joining California-based VC firm Greylock Partners.
After 5 years I’ve decided to leave Twitter and take some time off. Grateful to @jack for the opportunity and to my team for shipping.
— Adam Messinger (@adam_messinger) December 20, 2016
1/ Some personal news: I am excited to announce I will join @greylockvc as a general partner next year https://t.co/8YwCQZQIwp
— Josh McFarland (@crazyfoo) December 20, 2016
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who is facing the mass exodus of top-level exits, stagnating growth, and no buyers, also jumped on the platform to thank the departees for their contribution towards the one and only 140-character based social network.
Thank you for everything you’ve done for Twitter Adam! I have learned so much from you, and appreciate everything you stand for. ?? https://t.co/xdnZ9gdnnO
— ??jack (@jack) December 20, 2016
These departures are shocking and come at a time when Twitter as a company isn’t exactly on stable ground. It has just recently annoucned mass layoffs to the tunes of 9 percent of the global workforce, followed by exits of its COO, CTO, vice president of Product and Director of Media Partnerships Adam Sharp. A similar management exodus is also being faced at other regional offices, including India.
Talking about Messinger, he first joined the company about five years ago and has been appointed as the CTO for a good four years now. He was responsible for overseeing the engineering, product development, and design divisions at Twitter. Prior to working on the technical architecture, he was the VP of application development and worked with various teams, including mobile, web apps, advertising and many others.
Prior to his stint at Twitter, Messinger was the VP of Development at Oracle where he led the development of Java and Exalogic. He has also spent a good amount of time at O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, WebLogic, Organic, and the Santa Fe Institute.
McFarland, on the other hand, has received a warm welcome from Greylock Partners. They’ve penned a quirky and natural blog post about the details of finally adding McFarland to their arsenal of partners after the longest (&most tiring) recruitment process. His relation with the VC firm was established back in 2008 when they wanted to poach and add him to their ranks. But he went on to start a company of his own called TellApart, which was acquired by Twitter for a reported $30 million in early 2015. Talking about the same, Greylock partner James Slavet, says,
But McFarland went on to start a company of his own called TellApart, which was acquired by Twitter for a reported $30 million in early 2015. Now, post the completion of his entrepreneurial endeavors, he is finally ready to push capital into other ventures. Talking about the same, Greylock partner James Slavet, says,
We’re thrilled to announce today that our 8 year process of recruiting Josh to the Greylock investment team has at last converged. Josh will be wrapping up his work at Twitter in late Q1 2017 and will join Greylock as a partner soon after.
Our mission is to be the best partners for entrepreneurs who want to start and rapidly scale enduring, market-defining technology companies. Our years of working with Josh only deepened our conviction that he would make an excellent partner at Greylock.
However, the biggest point of concern here lies with Twitter. Who will fill in these major positions? And what’s the next move for the growth of the platform? Will it be able to cope and compete with others attractive propositions — Snapchat, Instagram or even Facebook?
