Earlier today, Twitter announced the appointment of Bret Taylor to its board. The former Chief Technology Officer at Facebook is expected to start his new responsibilities immediately and it’s still unclear whether he’ll remain involved in the collaborative productivity software startup Quip which he has co-founded and where he’s currently serving as a Chief Executive Officer. Twitter’s executive chairman Omid Kordestani said that the 35-year-old Taylor has “a great mind for consumer products and technologies that will be invaluable to the company” for both the present and the future, adding that he’s more than excited to welcome the newest board member aboard. Kordestani also revealed that he believes Taylor’s skills will complement those of Twitter’s other recent additions. For those unfamiliar, Twitter recently made several high-profile hirings, including Pepsi Chief Financial Officer Hugh Johnston, BET CEO Debra Lee, and Martha Lane Fox – a British baroness and a renowned Internet entrepreneur.
Taylor was hired as Facebook’s CTO after the company acquired his social network FriendFeed in 2009. Interestingly enough, FriendFeed used to be somewhat similar to Twitter and was actually directly competing with today’s most popular microblogging platform on the planet in the period between 2007 and 2009. Prior to that, Taylor was working as a group product manager at Google and has made significant contributions to the creation of Google Maps in addition to starting Google’s Developer product group. So, Twitter managed a board member with experience of working at several other social media companies, all of which were rather successfully inciting growth during his tenures. So, pretty much what Twitter is desperately trying to do right now as the company is looking for a way to get more of its half a billion of monthly visitors to log in and actively engage in interactions with other users.
With this latest addition, Twitter’s board looks nothing like the board under which the popular microblogging platform stagnated after a huge growth period experienced in the last decade. Industry experts are speculating that this new board may even be willing to consider selling the company if that trend is to continue. The company has been rather aggressive about replacing its board ever since its co-founder Jack Dorsey returned to San Francisco last October.