Reports have surfaced that Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo will be leaving his role as the social network’s CEO which he has held for the past six years, and will be replaced by Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s Cofounder, as the interim CEO until they find a permanent replacement to take over the position. This is in the wake of Twitter having a difficult time keeping user engagement and growth, despite its efforts to stimulate growth with new users and keep existing users engaged by way of adding new features and changing things up, like getting tweets back in the Google search rankings. While seemingly sound decisions which could help to turn the tides of Twitter’s user activity, it has apparently done little if anything to foster growth back to its once booming status.
According to Reuters, after details broke that Costolo would be stepping down, interestingly, Twitter shares rose by 7.7%, closing out at a total of $37.54 per share. According to statements from Costolo himself, Twitter has its “strongest ever” management team which played a role in shaping his decision to leave, and while Dorsey serves as the interim CEO Twitter executives will be searching for the permanent replacement which includes looking at all internal and external possibilities. Costolo also states that he announced his resignation before the new CEO was to be chosen for transparency purposes in regards to the searching for a new candidate in addition to him feeling that staying during the process would only serve to bring on further scrutiny over the lack of user growth. While it may take some time to find a suitable replacement, Business Insider points out that a seemingly large number of Twitter users want the new CEO to be a woman, with numerous amounts of users Tweeting their stance on the matter.
In perhaps what sounds like the most odd choice, Snoop Dog has announced his candidacy for taking over as the new Twitter boss, even proceeding to create and tweet a new hashtag #SnoopforCEO to show his commitment (enthusiasm?) for taking on the responsibility. The reality is though that whoever takes over the position needs to be someone that really loves the service and the product and actively uses it. That much has been made clear by users themselves, as well as Dorsey who states that the next CEO has to be someone “who really uses and loves the product in every single way” after being named the interim. There’s no detail on how soon Twitter will get a new leader, but in the meantime people are making their voices heard as to who should at the very least be considered.