Twitter jobs go down as Dorsey logs out

Twitter CEO and co-founder, Jack Dorsey, announced on Monday that he is leaving the company.

This will actually mark the second time Dorsey will step down from the post; after being named the social platform’s first CEO in 2007, he was ousted just a year later, only to return to the role in 2015. Dorsey’s latest departure will see Twitter’s current chief technology officer, Parag Agrawal, stepping into the role of CEO with Dorsey remaining on the board until his term expires in 2022.

Agrawal came on board at Twitter in 2011, and has been the company’s CTO since 2017. Far less known than Dorsey, he steps into the role without the outsized image the previous leader cast. Agrawal’s pedigree includes stints at Microsoft, Yahoo and AT&T in research roles. During his time at Twitter, he’s been largely dedicated to working on machine learning, revenue and consumer engineering and audience growth.

Widely regarded as a “safe” choice for the CEO role by investors, Agrawal’s appointment was expected to assuage Wall Street that Twitter is well-positioned to enter the metaverse era. The early read seemed to agree, as Twitter’s stock jumped 5 percent immediately after news broke of Dorsey’s departure before a halt in trading. That confidence proved fleeting though, as shares closed down about 2.7%.

Twitter shares have been on a relatively steady uphill climb throughout the preceding couple of years. The stock saw mostly upward motion in 2020, along with their 8.8% YoY increase in revenue and 47 million new users picked up during the year.

Job listings at Twitter generally climbed high from August 15, 2020 to Sept 20, 2021, active listings were up 363% over that period. But they have been decreasing ever since. Though we don’t currently see a direct correlation between job listings and share price at Twitter, we certainly see the two data points have been on a similar trajectory. It will also be interesting to observe how this plays out as Twitter inevitably makes a bigger play for their piece of the metaverse. We know companies preparing for major growth or innovation often staff up accordingly; giving investors an early signal that upward momentum is not far off.

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