Tech guru Jack Dorsey moves on from his helm over Twitter

Tech guru Jack Dorsey moves on from his helm over Twitter

The mercurial Twitter co-founder and now former CEO is pivoting away from the position to focus on his multiple other ventures, which have been folded together under a parent company called Block.

Concerned about its impact in the 2016 presidential elections and beyond, in September 2018 the U.S. Senate grilled Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg over internet trolls, fake news, and deepfake videos.

"Suddenly, in video, (Americans) can no longer trust what they see because of the opportunity to create video that’s entirely different to anything in reality has now actually come," said Oklahoma Senator James Lankford.

” data-credit=”U.S. Senate (screenshot)”>dorsey.jpg

Concerned about its impact in the 2016 presidential elections and beyond, in September 2018 the U.S. Senate grilled Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg over internet trolls, fake news, and deepfake videos.

“Suddenly, in video, (Americans) can no longer trust what they see because of the opportunity to create video that’s entirely different to anything in reality has now actually come,” said Oklahoma Senator James Lankford.

U.S. Senate (screenshot)

“Not sure anyone has heard” Jack Dorsey abruptly tweeted on Nov. 29 “but, I resigned from Twitter.” 

Dorsey, the idiosyncratic, 45-year-old tech entrepreneur was the face of Twitter, a company he co-founded in 2006 with Biz Stone, Evan Williams and Noah Glass. During the social media platform’s genesis, he was appointed CEO but was subsequently pushed out of the position in 2008 and Williams took over the role. Dorsey moved over as chairman of the board (according to Nick Bilton’s book, “Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal,” Dorsey was pressured off of the job in a response to him regularly leaving the office to do yoga and try his hand as a fashion designer). Dorsey, though, fell back into the CEO gig in 2015. 

In his resignation on Monday, he stated: “I’ve worked hard to ensure this company can break away from its founding and founders,” He added: “I believe it’s critical a company can stand on its own, free of its founder’s influence or direction.”

“There aren’t many companies that get to this level. And there aren’t many founders that choose their company over their own ego,” Dorsey went on to maintain.

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Seemingly, though, the real reason for the departure is that Dorsey wants to focus on his payment company Square and other ventures — and his current main passion — Bitcoin. (At a conference this year, he said: “for me, bitcoin changes absolutely everything”). And on Wednesday, Dorsey announced that Square was being rebranded as Block — which he said will now be a “corporate entity.” 

As of late, Dorsey’s restless decision to move on seems to be a growing trend among tech billionaires. Jeff Bezos, for instance, departed his helm over Amazon to focus on space travel. Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, rebranded the social media platform to Meta.

With Dorsey’s pivot, the parent company plans to merge Dorsey’s other enterprises: Cash App, a payment service platform, Tidal, a music streaming service he purchased from hip-hop mogul Jay-Z, and his platform focused on Bitcoin entitled TBD54566975. With the merger, Square will keep its name but Square Crypto name is being changed to Spiral.  

“The name [Square] has many associated meanings for the company — building blocks, neighborhood blocks and their local businesses, communities coming together at block parties full of music, a blockchain, a section of code and obstacles to overcome,” the company stated in a press release. 

It added: “Block is an overarching ecosystem of many businesses united by their purpose of economic empowerment, and serves many people — individuals, artists, fans, developers and sellers.”

And Square recently tweeted: “Not to get all meta on you … but we’re going to! Block references the neighborhood blocks where we find our sellers, a blockchain, block parties full of music, obstacles to overcome, a section of code, building blocks and of course, tungsten cubes.”  

The overhaul is expected to take effect Dec. 10, and the release states the company’s NYSE ticker symbol “SQ” will stay the same.

And in a cheeky move yesterday, Block unveiled Blockify Yourself, which allows users to digitally project their portraits onto cubes. Here’s one result.  

As far as Twitter, its chief technology officer, Parag Agrawal, is moving over to the CEO position. 

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