Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Steps Down

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has said today that he is stepping down as head of the social media platform he co-founded a decade and a half ago, the company announced on Monday.

Board member and former Chief Technology Officer Parag Agrawal was appointed CEO, effective immediately, and Dorsey will remain a member of the board until his term expires at next year’s stockholders’ meeting, the company said.

New CEO Already Announced

“I’ve decided to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders,” Dorsey said in a statement released by Twitter. “My trust in Parag as Twitter’s CEO is deep. His work over the past 10 years has been transformational. I’m deeply grateful for his skill, heart, and soul. It’s his time to lead.”

Twitter CEO Dorsey warned of the potential pitfalls of a company founder staying on for too long. “There’s a lot of talk about the importance of a company being ‘founder-led,'” Dorsey said. “Ultimately I believe that’s severely limiting and a single point of failure.”

He added: “And there aren’t many founders that choose their company over their own ego. I know we’ll prove this was the right move.”

What’s Next for Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey?

CNBC was the first to report Dorsey’s departure on Monday. Dorsey remains CEO of Square, his digital payments company. Dorsey is the only person to be CEO of two public companies with market valuations of greater than $5 billion.

In his statement, Dorsey didn’t mention Square or investor pressure previously brought on him to pick one of the executive posts. There’s no word as to whether or not the reign of shutting down accounts of people who don’t agree with Dorsey’s politics will come to an end.

Twitter’s strict policy of suspending or terminating accounts to silence those who disagree with their (Jack Dorsey’s) views has been inspirational to Breakout.  Breakout’s position that all voices should be heard.