I still think it's impossible to run two companies that both require so much attention, given their stage.
Yes Jobs had Apple and Pixar, and Musk has Tesla and SpaceX. But both Pixar and SpaceX don't really require day-to-day CEO attention, they follow long term plans (movies, rockets). That's really different from Square and Twitter, which are both, in their own ways, in a kind of trouble.
I'd love to be proven wrong though -- so good luck, Jack!
Jobs didn't run Pixar. He was a principal investor and Chairman of the Board, negotiating a few milestones like the sale to Disney, but most of his focus was on NeXT and then Apple. Ed Catmull and John Lasseter ran Pixar's day-to-day ops.
Creativity, Inc. by Catmull covers all this. It paints a better portrait of Jobs than Isaacson's Jobs biography. Plus, you get to read about the history of computer graphics and Toy Story.
On a sidenote, I found Creativity Inc., to be a fantastic book about how to build a company. I find it very insightful.
I love this particular chapter where he discusses about how you feel like you don't "belong" in that role of a leader within your own company, imagining that the leader is supposed to have some perceived aggressive characteristics of your ideal leader.
But all along, you may have been the right person to make sense of everything happening in that group and it is very important to let go of those inhibitions and just focus on the job to be done. As long as we have a group that is passionate and motivated to do the job and focused on customers, you are doing alright.
It was beautifully narrated by him and I loved it. It is something you experience as a startup founder, bringing along smarter folks into the group and be humbled by everyday experiences.
> SpaceX [doesn't] really require day-to-day CEO attention
Really? What's special about SpaceX that it doesn't require a full-time CEO? I'd imagine, considering the scope of their task and the scale of their ambition, it'd require more hands-on time than most.
I'm not the GP, but I think its' not a very full-time role because movement is slow and progressive. They have the next 18 months of what the company is going to do locked down and defined. I would also suspect they have strong 2nd level exec leadership to handle day to day. Elon only needs to get involved on big strategic decisions and crises, plus routine periodic budget and financial assessments.
I'm sure he's still working more than 40 hours a week across all of his companies, but I don't think he needs to be in the room for every major meeting.
Musk lives in LA and takes his private jet up to San Jose every week to work at Tesla (then back to LA to work at SpaceX).
If anything, Musk has two full time jobs (priorities: 1. SpaceX; 2. Tesla; 3. everything else) and actually does 80-100 hours per week of work. He's not out creating vanity designer clothing lines in his spare time.
You can't create world class products or companies while maintaing a silly "because i'm so special i'll only work 6 hours a day, 4 days a week, 1 week a month" mindset.
Is there any reason that Musk couldn't colocate SpaceX and Tesla in Freemont instead of SpaceX being located in Hawthorne? What's the benefit of SpaceX being in the LA area?
Steve Jobs (February 24, 1955 - October 5, 2011) was one of the three founding fathers of Pixar Animation Studios. A business magnate and inventor, he was the former CEO of Apple Inc. and Pixar Animation Studios.
I keep wondering if this is going to be like Marissa Mayer joining Yahoo - much fanfare, some movement, but at the end of the day she's been unable to significantly move the needle. I just wonder if Twitter fundamentally isn't as scalable an idea/product as Facebook et al. It's obviously Jack's job to make it that - but what if the basic form of Twitter just isn't as compelling, no matter how you change it or dress it up?
Then his job is find something else for Twitter to make. Facebook has launched a lot of experimental apps like Paper, Rooms, Slingshot, Messenger. And they bought Instagram which is very successful. Under Costolo Twitter bought vine and periscope, but they haven't tried to experiment with new app ideas internally.
If they went back to their roots as a messaging API for other apps, they would not have to build new apps. Become the messaging backbone for the Internet. That's plenty of scale to go after.
In what world is Paper, Rooms, or Slingshot even remotely successful?
And obviously the messaging service attached to an already massive social network would be compelling, that's not really an "experimental app" by any definition.
Almost certainly. Twitter's user base is not growing, and their product basically hasn't changed in 5 years. They have a valuable brand, but they need to figure out how to fundamentally improve the ease of use of the whole thing and make a decent value proposition. Photos, messages, videos, search... make the app not suck.
Snapchat and Instagram are very quickly taking over the celebrity/new/sports one-to-many angle from Twitter. Once celebrities depart, Twitter will have only news, and that's not enough most likely.
One of the big challenges is that Twitter is largely geared towards people looking to engage on topical issues in a public forum. If you're an expert in a particular area and consistently engage with other experts in a public forum where the occasional random user chimes in then Twitter has a value proposition for you. I mean it's right there in the platform... people "follow" you, they're not your "friend" or "linked" to you. You need to say something that people are interested in following.
The problem is that most Internet users don't fit into this bucket. They have things to discuss and share with a small group of family/friends but beyond that don't have much to say, to the broader world. These are the users that flock to Facebook, Snapchat, et al.
Until Twitter finds a way to engage the everyday average Internet user then they'll struggle to grow or create a meaningful value proposition (the $$$ is in advertising to the masses, not the engaged thought leaders).
The data on users indicates Twitter has likely peaked in terms of attracting these engaged users (data also indicates a lot of these "active accounts" are fake / bots / spam). Until that changes Twitter will be in trouble as it has no viable long term business model.
> they need to figure out how to fundamentally improve the ease of use of the whole thing
I've frequently heard this theory, that Twitter's problem is that it's too complicated. I don't buy it. It has a simpler UI than Facebook or Snapchat, and it's not significantly more complicated than Instagram or Vine or Periscope or any other media sharing platform.
If you personally enjoy Twitter and derive value from it, it's easy to believe that people who don't get into Twitter just don't understand it it. My experience is that many people sign up, send their first tweet, and then say, "OK, I get it, and I have no use for this." I've helped my friends follow news sources and celebrities they like, but then they look at the wall of Tweets and say, "OK, I get it, but I don't want to read things in this format." It's not about ease-of-use for them, it's about the basic value proposition of tweeting and the Twitter feed.
Realtime news and straight-from-the-horse's mouth access to celebrities is fundamentally a good opportunity that no one does better than Twitter right now. The question is whether they'll have the decisiveness to make it a better experience for a broader audience without alienating the core that generates the best content.
On Media Watch (Australia) last week they discussed how savvy politicians now use social to speak directly to the public, cutting the middle man out of the equation. The middle man being traditional news media.
I think facebook is less appropriate for this kind of celebrity broadcast.
I find it frustrating to watch twitter flail around because I can see this epic opportunity hanging right in front of them. I really hope they can take that small step and make twitter something truly epic.
I'm not a huge fan of the CEO of two companies thing, but Jack has been interim CEO for 3 months. At least if they changed their position on this they've got the evidence that he can handle both roles.
Twitter does not need to gain new users - it needs to reactivate old users. The statistic I cannot get past is that they have lost one billion users. That is a much different problem than most companies are dealing with.
Probably quite a few, but no matter what an inactive account is -- spam, a novelty account, or an actual inactive person -- if you have 3 times as many inactive accounts as active accounts, there is something awry.
Twitter is not like Facebook or Instagram or What's App. Most of the daily users are not actually logged in users, they consume the information in other ways like Google searches, widgets on news articles or entertainment websites. Facebook and every other app don't have this ability, everything is locked up because of privacy settings so the only people that ever see it are the people you allow. So, even if you're not a logged in Twitter user you still can see the ads and be monetized. Tell me the same for any other popular app out there.
Instagram accounts aren't private by default, and posts can be embedded in other web pages (e.g. a lot of clickbait "journalism" does this), though it does not have a friendly logged-out interface like Twitter.
The entire concept of Twitter still makes no sense regardless of how many people are using it. It's coasting on momentum at this point and might give out any second.
Pulling up that link in Safari on mobile really demonstrates how bad the UI/UX is. There is no obvious way to see anything other than the first tweet in the series:
“It’s exhilarating for him,” one long-time confidante said. “He draws energy from how to think about both companies.”
Whether by coincidence or design, Dorsey’s comeback closely resembles the Steve Jobs Narrative — a modern myth Silicon Valley entrepreneurs hold up as a map to absolution.
(1)
I'm going with "by design." His ego risks the futures of both companies, unfortunately. Surprised the Twitter board caved on allowing a part-time CEO.
I hope Jack realizes that Twitter is not a great tool to chat with friends / neighborhood / family, but an incredible tool to reach people who are away from you, social and geographical.
They need to focus on how easy it is to approach a movie star, your favorite player and musician you like. How easy it is to show that you like a brand or you love a new TV show. And talk about some major events that are happening around you.
For people who have no idea what it is, they just see it as a tool to talk to someone. And most of the time, you do not have any feedback on what you wrote. In fact, you may not have any idea how many people have read what you have written.
So I think if they focused on showing how Twitter is great for expanding the boundaries of what you want to talk and make easy to see feedback from people about what you have spoken, they can attract more people.
Jokes aside, I think Jack is the man for the job. He has proven capable in square. I hope he does the same with Twitter. The company needs to take advantages of the huge market share it has.
I disagree. He's proven capable as a fundraiser at Square. Square is far from a success, thus far. That being said, I'm not sure anyone could have made Square a success from the P&L perspective--the payments space is just damn crowded.
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Yes Jobs had Apple and Pixar, and Musk has Tesla and SpaceX. But both Pixar and SpaceX don't really require day-to-day CEO attention, they follow long term plans (movies, rockets). That's really different from Square and Twitter, which are both, in their own ways, in a kind of trouble.
I'd love to be proven wrong though -- so good luck, Jack!
Creativity, Inc. by Catmull covers all this. It paints a better portrait of Jobs than Isaacson's Jobs biography. Plus, you get to read about the history of computer graphics and Toy Story.
I love this particular chapter where he discusses about how you feel like you don't "belong" in that role of a leader within your own company, imagining that the leader is supposed to have some perceived aggressive characteristics of your ideal leader.
But all along, you may have been the right person to make sense of everything happening in that group and it is very important to let go of those inhibitions and just focus on the job to be done. As long as we have a group that is passionate and motivated to do the job and focused on customers, you are doing alright.
It was beautifully narrated by him and I loved it. It is something you experience as a startup founder, bringing along smarter folks into the group and be humbled by everyday experiences.
Really? What's special about SpaceX that it doesn't require a full-time CEO? I'd imagine, considering the scope of their task and the scale of their ambition, it'd require more hands-on time than most.
I'm sure he's still working more than 40 hours a week across all of his companies, but I don't think he needs to be in the room for every major meeting.
If anything, Musk has two full time jobs (priorities: 1. SpaceX; 2. Tesla; 3. everything else) and actually does 80-100 hours per week of work. He's not out creating vanity designer clothing lines in his spare time.
You can't create world class products or companies while maintaing a silly "because i'm so special i'll only work 6 hours a day, 4 days a week, 1 week a month" mindset.
generally curious, where did you read about Dorsey having this mindset?
Steve Jobs (February 24, 1955 - October 5, 2011) was one of the three founding fathers of Pixar Animation Studios. A business magnate and inventor, he was the former CEO of Apple Inc. and Pixar Animation Studios.
And obviously the messaging service attached to an already massive social network would be compelling, that's not really an "experimental app" by any definition.
Snapchat and Instagram are very quickly taking over the celebrity/new/sports one-to-many angle from Twitter. Once celebrities depart, Twitter will have only news, and that's not enough most likely.
The problem is that most Internet users don't fit into this bucket. They have things to discuss and share with a small group of family/friends but beyond that don't have much to say, to the broader world. These are the users that flock to Facebook, Snapchat, et al.
Until Twitter finds a way to engage the everyday average Internet user then they'll struggle to grow or create a meaningful value proposition (the $$$ is in advertising to the masses, not the engaged thought leaders).
The data on users indicates Twitter has likely peaked in terms of attracting these engaged users (data also indicates a lot of these "active accounts" are fake / bots / spam). Until that changes Twitter will be in trouble as it has no viable long term business model.
I've frequently heard this theory, that Twitter's problem is that it's too complicated. I don't buy it. It has a simpler UI than Facebook or Snapchat, and it's not significantly more complicated than Instagram or Vine or Periscope or any other media sharing platform.
If you personally enjoy Twitter and derive value from it, it's easy to believe that people who don't get into Twitter just don't understand it it. My experience is that many people sign up, send their first tweet, and then say, "OK, I get it, and I have no use for this." I've helped my friends follow news sources and celebrities they like, but then they look at the wall of Tweets and say, "OK, I get it, but I don't want to read things in this format." It's not about ease-of-use for them, it's about the basic value proposition of tweeting and the Twitter feed.
On Media Watch (Australia) last week they discussed how savvy politicians now use social to speak directly to the public, cutting the middle man out of the equation. The middle man being traditional news media.
I think facebook is less appropriate for this kind of celebrity broadcast.
I find it frustrating to watch twitter flail around because I can see this epic opportunity hanging right in front of them. I really hope they can take that small step and make twitter something truly epic.
https://recode.net/2015/06/22/twitter-feels-compelled-to-poi...
http://scripting.com/2015/10/02/whatWouldAFatTweetLookLike.h...
Obviously, they've thought of this internally too. I wonder what the point of the 140 character limit is today (I think it made sense originally).
Deleted Comment
My examples are:
The gossip and snark of say Startup L Jackson vs the gossip and snark of a valleywag post.
IRC backchannels during conferences versus a Tweet Wall.
http://m.imgur.com/7JSETBc
Whether by coincidence or design, Dorsey’s comeback closely resembles the Steve Jobs Narrative — a modern myth Silicon Valley entrepreneurs hold up as a map to absolution.
(1)I'm going with "by design." His ego risks the futures of both companies, unfortunately. Surprised the Twitter board caved on allowing a part-time CEO.
1. http://recode.net/2015/10/02/why-jack-dorsey-is-ready-to-sav...
They need to focus on how easy it is to approach a movie star, your favorite player and musician you like. How easy it is to show that you like a brand or you love a new TV show. And talk about some major events that are happening around you.
For people who have no idea what it is, they just see it as a tool to talk to someone. And most of the time, you do not have any feedback on what you wrote. In fact, you may not have any idea how many people have read what you have written.
So I think if they focused on showing how Twitter is great for expanding the boundaries of what you want to talk and make easy to see feedback from people about what you have spoken, they can attract more people.
Jokes aside, I think Jack is the man for the job. He has proven capable in square. I hope he does the same with Twitter. The company needs to take advantages of the huge market share it has.