Being CEO at two publicly traded companies means 18-hour days, a meticulous schedule and impromptu business meetings
Twitter Inc.’s executive chairman, Omid Kordestani, struggled to find time in Jack Dorsey’s jam-packed schedule for their weekly chat. So he offered to be the CEO’s driver for the day.
On a recent morning, Mr. Kordestani weaved through Silicon Valley traffic in his Tesla Model S as the pair talked business.
Mr. Kordestani said.
“We just maximize every hour we can, however we can do it.”
It is a telling snapshot of the demands that now confront Mr. Dorsey, who recently embarked on the herculean task of running both Twitter and payments firm Square Inc. His official return as Twitter chief in October, and Square’s IPO one month ago, put Mr. Dorsey in the rare class of CEOs charged with simultaneously leading two publicly traded companies.
The dual role invoked comparisons to tech luminaries Steve Jobs, who ran Apple Inc. and Pixar Animation Studios while they were both publicly traded, and Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors Inc. and privately held rocket maker Space Exploration Technologies Inc.
Mr. Musk, for one, isn’t an advocate. Mr. Muisk said at a conference in October.
“I wouldn’t recommend running two companies. It really decreases your freedom a lot.”
He has said he would eventually step back from everyday operations at Tesla. Mr. Musk had no further comment.
Mr. Dorsey, 39 years old, isn’t married and doesn’t have any children unlike Messrs. Jobs and Musk. He will likely have little free time as both Twitter and Square are at critical junctures. Twitter is working to show frustrated investors the social media service has mass-market appeal. Square is trying to prove it can expand beyond the intensely competitive payments space. Neither is profitable.
Twitter shares are trading at an all-time low and have fallen about 13% since Mr. Dorsey was named CEO. Square’s shares have risen about 35% since the IPO on Nov. 19, but they still trade below the price private investors paid last year.
Twitter and Square declined to make Mr. Dorsey or his executive teams available for comment.
Mr. Dorsey has looked to Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Robert Iger as something of a mentor because of the multifaceted businesses he oversees, ranging from a movie studio and television networks to theme parks and cruise lines. Mr. Dorsey joined Disney’s board in 2013.
Mr. Iger said he occasionally counsels Mr. Dorsey on business matters. Mr. Iger said.
“I am not involved in his businesses, so I am a good sounding board for him.”
Mr. Iger said in an interview.
"To run two companies at once, you need a few things and Jack has them. You need the ability to focus and prioritize and compartmentalize...and you need great people under you.”
Mr. Dorsey has cited strong leadership under him to help him manage the day-to-day, though he hasn’t assigned a No. 2 at either company. At Twitter, he has eight direct reports—including operating chief Adam Bain and finance chief Anthony Noto—and 10 at Square, including one C-suite executive, CFO Sarah Friar.
Eric Flamholtz, professor emeritus of the University of California, Los Angeles Anderson School of Management, said.
“A classic CEO should have his hands in everything: financials, operations, personnel. But if you’re splitting your time between the two companies, it becomes much more about who the people are around you.”
Others have a different view. Suhail Rizvi, whose firm Rizvi Traverse Management LLC is an investor in Twitter and Square, through a spokesman, said.
“Managing multiple companies is the wrong way to look at the challenge. The key is, can [Twitter] continue to develop new products and attract the best talent? These are the areas in which Jack excels.”
For now, Mr. Dorsey appears to be sticking to a meticulous schedule with long hours. Representatives of Twitter and Square say Mr. Dorsey works as much as 18 hours per weekday, spending his mornings at Twitter and afternoons at Square, which are located a block from each other in San Francisco’s mid-Market neighborhood.
Mr. Dorsey is disciplined about his schedule and habits. For example, current and former Twitter employees say he is known to abruptly get up at the designated end time of a meeting, simply saying,
“I’ve got to go.”
He typically starts his days with coffee at Blue Bottle, located between the two headquarters. According to Twitter and Square, on Monday morning, Mr. Dorsey arrives at Twitter for five-hour meetings with his eight senior executives and Mr. Kordestani to review the business operations and projects. At 1:30 p.m., he rushes over to Square to repeat the same exercise. Mr. Dorsey tells executives to put their phones and laptops away—he has no office or desk at either company.
He also holds 30-minute check-ins with key deputies at each company on Wednesdays and Fridays. He remains in contact even when he isn’t physically present, Mr. Kordestani said.
During Square’s IPO roadshow, he would call Twitter from his hotel room in between meetings or at night after his schedule wound down, Mr. Kordestani said.
His placid temperament and preference for meditation and yoga contrast with the gregarious and ebullient nature of Dick Costolo, who was Twitter CEO for five years before resigning in June. Mr. Kordestani said.
“When he comes into the room you get this sense of comfort that you’re with a very grounded person.”
Still, Mr. Dorsey is said to get bogged down in minutiae. Two people who worked closely with him say he would at times drop everything to focus on, say, an app logo’s hue, or the wording of sections of a Web page.
While employees say he has lifted morale at Twitter, managers continue to depart. In recent weeks, Twitter’s head of design, director of corporate strategy and a senior engineering executive have left or announced plans to leave.
A Twitter spokesman said that each of those people left for different reasons.
Over the past several months, Mr. Dorsey has reviewed the entire organization, asked for feedback about the company’s priorities and the reporting structure including those on the senior management team, according to people familiar with the matter.
When asked what he thinks of Mr. Dorsey’s performance so far, Mr. Rizvi, the investor, said:
“The results will be apparent over the next few quarters.”
Write to Yoree Koh at yoree.koh@wsj.com and Greg Bensinger at greg.bensinger@wsj.com
COMMENTARY: Just when Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) stock looked like it couldn't go any lower, it did. Then it did again. Twitter shares began a steep descent from around $53 in April to about $35 by mid-ear as investor concerns about the company's slowing user growth mounted. At the end of today's trading, Twitter shares closed at $22.14, down $0.85 or -3.70%, a new low for Twitter.
Investors were hoping the company's decision this summer to bring back co-founder Jack Dorsey as CEO would quickly spark big, game-changing strategic moves. But, so far, the Street appears unimpressed.
Dorsey's believers
Chief Investment Officer Rizvi Traverse, whose investment firm has a stake in both Twitter and Square, is among the investors betting Dorsey is the right fit for Twitter as the company aims to address the social platform's slowing user growth problem.
But Rizvi says investors will have to wait longer to see the fruit of Dorsey's return.
An excerpt from a Dec. 21 Wall Street Journal article captures Rizvi's confidence: When asked what he thinks of Mr. Dorsey's performance so far, Mr. Rizvi, the investor, said:
'The results will be apparent over the next few quarters.'"
Similarly, in an October interview with CNBC, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams expressed confidence in Dorsey's plans to make "bold" moves. Williams believes these big changes will be evident in "months."
So far, the pace of change at Twitter from an outsider's perspective remains similar to the unsatisfactory pace under former CEO Dick Costolo's reign. And this is driving uncertainty in the stock market toward the stock, playing a key role in the continued sell-off.
Embracing change
Twitter product lead Kevin Weil said during a Code/Mobile interview in October that Dorsey is encouraging Twitter managers to challenge their own assumptions. Weil even went as far as to say that the company is willing to change "something that's at the core of Twitter," prompting speculation that Twitter could even drop its 140-character limit for tweets.
One recent move that was supposed to represent a catalyst for the company was Twitter's October-launched Moments, a.k.a. "project lighting." But the new Twitter feature, which aims to rapidly curate news, doesn't appear to sport the gusto needed to transform the service into the mass-market player investors are hoping for.
While investors should, indeed, expect to see successful new features from Twitter following Dorsey's return, Rizvi is probably right that it's going to take "the next few quarters" for the co-founder's impact to be realized. Even Twitter's Moments feature isn't entirely representative of Dorsey's return to the company; the product was already deep into development when Costolo resigned.
Twitter Apps Waning
Twitter's company-owned apps have lost their appeal with users. Vine, an app that creates 6-second videos, had 100 milli0n monthly active users at the end of September 2015, but has been overtaken and left in the dust by Facebook's Instagram with 400 million monthly active users. Persiscope, a mobile app acquired by Twitter earlier this year, that lets you broadcast live video to your followers, has hit a brick wall with new users. According to RE/CODE, Periscope only has 10 million monthly active users.
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Closing Comments
In a previous blog post, I expressed serious concerns about Twitter and and a lack of confidence in Jack Dorsey. I just don't think that he has the chops to lead two troubled companies simultaneously. I have not seen any "bold" moves. By "bold" moves, I mean historic, breakthrough or disruptive new products or changes to Twitter that will create headlines and attract new users and increase engagement. This is important for users as well as advertisers who are starting to get anxious and losing confidence in Twitter as a go-to ad platform. If these bold moves are in the works, Jack better get them out before year-end, otherwise his next earnings conference call is going to be very, very tense.
Having dropped these nuclear bomb criticisms, I believe that Twitter needs to be re-invented and radically changed. Tweets alone, whether 140-characters or longer, are not going to change user perceptions of Twitter. Twitter cannot rely solely on being a news and information broadcasting platform. Twitter needs to be much more than this. It really needs to offer something entirely new, exciting, game changing and fill a real need in the marketplace. Twitter may have filled users expectations for news and information in real-time (near), but other social networks are filling this need as well, they just don't call them tweets.
Courtesy of an article dated December 21, 2015 appearing in The Wall Street Journal and an article dated September 22, 2015 appearing in LinkedIn Pulse
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