Hacker News Reader

Comment by bru_ | Hacker News Reader

People are worried that Jack will be too busy between Twitter and Square, but what they don't know is that the dude's been completely spaced out for the last 4 years, making the same motivational presentation about his Dad's pizza shop to anyone that will listen. Nobody at Twitter talks to Jack anymore, even the most Senior people.

View on HN

[citation needed].

Seriously though, are you an employee at Twitter or Square, or are you basing this statement on the fact that you (presumably someone who doesn't see what's going on within Twitter and Square) only see Jack in interviews, and he tells the same story?

I mean, I'm by no means a big time CEO, but the only contact people outside my company have with what's going on internally are interviews. And when I give interviews I tell the same story probably almost identically, word for word. Why? Because that's the story. It doesn't change interview to interview. You have one story, one vision, one mission, and you talk about it to anyone who asks. That's not surprising.

Internally, if you're not an employee or talking to employees (ideally executives), you pretty much have zero idea what the CEO does day to day.

I worked at Square when it was relatively small (<100 people) and Jack seemed to only be around for weekly presentations. But! That seems to be normal for CEOs? It's not like their job is actually to play pingpong with software developers all day.

How much they are around matters much less than whether or not they have set a clear strategy for the company, whether their direct reports have the autonomy and ability to execute on their pieces of the strategy, whether they have built and maintain a culture that keeps the organization productive, and if they are available to their direct reports when needed.

If all those things are true, then they can be in the office as much or little as they want. If one or more of those are missing, then the CEO has work to do.

In my experience at startups, especially as they get past 100 employees or so, if you see the CEO around the office a lot, something is probably wrong. The CEOs where I've worked have usually been off talking to investors, potential partners, large customers, etc. Sure, they show up for all-hands meetings, and they're in the office for a couple weeks at a time sometimes, but at least half their job is externally-facing, explaining the company to the world.

There was a great article a while back [on founding and rise of Twitter and Dorsey's bio] that did not paint him in a good light: "All is fair in love and Twitter" [0]

As one former Twitter employee has said, “The greatest product Jack Dorsey ever made was Jack Dorsey.”

[0] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/magazine/all-is-fair-in-lo...

Which is actually an excerpt from a book by the same author: http://smile.amazon.com/Hatching-Twitter-Story-Friendship-Be...

Good recent article which paints him as much more mature now:

http://recode.net/2015/10/02/why-jack-dorsey-is-ready-to-sav...

Good or bad, remember it's all PR.

Nick Bilton's "Hatching Twitter" painted a pretty bad picture about him also - I was surprised - I thought it was going to be a puff piece before I read it.

Am I missing a joke here? (honest question)

He seems to be there mostly for PR and customer relations.

To the people whose only contact with a company are via PR and customer relations, of course it seems like that's all he does. That's the only side you see. Does anyone making comments like this have any idea what happens internally?

The employees I know at Twitter are thrilled.

People with a vested interest in twitter seem to be thrilled. And they are the ones defending twitter in this discussion. Neutral outsiders are much more apprehensive. Take that how you will... could be that they know more than us, as you imply. Could be bias. Time will tell.

Right, he fits a role in the company's narrative, both for the inside and outside.

He is perceived as twitter "creator/inventor" after all, so I can understand why the employees are thrilled.

I've actually heard that he's making long-needed changes on the product side of things since he's been back, so the employees I talk to at least believe that he will help in more than just "the narrative." Of course, those were people with a lot of stock in the company, so they're not impartial; I fear there are very few knowledgable, impartial sources in this one.

Good to know, then time will tell and we will see his impact on the product.

Recode is nuancing the discussion: http://recode.net/2015/10/02/why-jack-dorsey-is-ready-to-sav...

https://www.google.ru/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&es...

He really does like that story.

making the same motivational presentation about his Dad's pizza shop to anyone that will listen

Well then, consistency. And do we not all tell the same stories, live the same lives daily, do the same work daily, solve the same problems. It's all rewind and repeat, and I would not be upset at anyone who does this.

Nobody at Twitter talks to Jack anymore

Gosh, there are 4000 people at Twitter. One could hardly maintain a true working relationship with 1% of the workforce.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com