UPDATE: Nicholas Carlson reported today that Sequoia’s Roelof Botha (investor in Square) tweeted, “To do two things at once is to do neither.” ~Publilius Syrus. Soon afterward he deleted the tweet. I agree with him.
Dumbest Idea Ever: Twitter (after raising more than $360MM) has decided to hire a part-time head of product.
Second Dumbest Idea Ever: Square (after raising more than $37MM) has decided to hire a part-time CEO.
Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and current CEO of Square, announced two hours ago that he was rejoining the Twitter team as head of product. Strangely in the same announcement he indicated that he would keep his position as CEO of Square (a mobile payments startup he co-founded). In Jack’s tweet he suggested he could somehow perform at 200%. I think it was my mom who explained to me that the whole giving 110% was impossible – the most you could ever deliver was 100%.
Over the past decade I have been CEO of four different startups (LayerOne, Architel, Big in Japan and ShopSavvy) and I can tell you being the CEO is more than a full time job. Giving 100% is really hard especially if you have a family (I am married with two kiddos). Each day there are a million decisions to make and a million different directions you can take a startup. I can’t imagine having to reboot my brain to begin thinking about a second startup – especially one as big as Twitter.
Twitter is an amazing company with amazing growth. I can only imagine sitting through the board meeting where it was decided that Twitter could get by with a part-time head of product. Surely the company could find someone in the Bay Area to head up product of Twitter. Seems like a pretty easy position to fill. Of course the jury is still out over at Square.
Square has secured a lot of venture capital, but whether or not it is a financial success is still very much up in the air. Square needs a LOT of attention and perhaps a course correction. The truth is that Square’s part-time CEO can’t (i.e. unless the company has mastered special relativity) give 100%. How much will he be able to give? Lets assume 20% of his effort is focused on his personal life. This means he will be able to give up-to 80% of this effort to both Twitter and Square. I bet Twitter is a very demanding place – hundreds of millions of dollars on the line usually creates demand. Surely they would want half of his effort – i.e. 40% leaving Square with a 40% CEO. Is this smart? I think Jack is a great guy and an awesome entrepreneur – but I think the board of both Twitter and Square should be rethinking this idea…
Agreed. Not sure what the board of Twitter or Square is thinking.
Further evidence that we are in a social tech bubble? I’m not sure this would fly at any other time besides 1999.
Square: We’re still Jack Dorsey’s top priority | VentureBeat http://bit.ly/enlKOj
I wholeheartedly agree with you. Although, I will add this. I think the CEO position at Square is more like a Chairman of the Board role. I believe that Keith Rabois, Square’s COO, is running the show as if he’s the CEO.
Great post and probably a challenging situation given the amount of attention on both. With that said, I’d agree with Vladik – I think Keith is likely acting like both the CEO and COO of Square. My big question is about Evan Williams – didn’t he step down from the CEO role to focus on “product” when Dick Costolo came in? So, how does Jack’s return impact his role? I think we’re in a state of “to be determined” for now.