Jack Dorsey and Twitter: Can you have a part-time product visionary?

http://gigaom.com/2012/10/06/jack-dorsey-and-twitter-can-you-have-a-part-time-product-visionary/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OmMalik+%28GigaOM%3A+Tech%29

by protomyth • 14 years ago

31 11 14 years ago

gigaom.com

webwielder• 14 years ago

Has Twitter ever had a vision? Their product direction seems to have been largely based on cribbing what users and third party clients come up with.

rhizome• 14 years ago

I suspect they were originally angling to be a communications medium, but somewhere they decided that being a content network was a better idea.

kmfrk2• 14 years ago

From what I read, they aren't aiming for an IPO, so they are definitely here to stay - or at least they think so.

Costolo's Charlie Rose interview made it sound like Twitter and its success happened completely by accident, and the company will now try to capitalize on it instead of trying to understand what made Twitter successful and grow that aspect of it.

It's only going to get worse from here.

kmfrk2• 14 years ago

No.

I think we all know the answer to the question but hope for something magical to intercede and steer Twitter the right way, but obviously this is never going to happen.

They're going to grow the site into a platform instead of just a service with a payments/microtransaction system.

I kinda hate myself for liking Steve Ballmer as a CEO more than Costolo, but there it is.

nc17• 14 years ago

Betteridge's Law of Headlines applies to this article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridges_Law_of_Headlines

gobengo• 14 years ago

Last I heard Jack was working 16hr days, 8 at Twitter and 8 at Square. I'm sure it was an exaggeration, but any amount of working day after day at an org gives you the leverage you need to provide vision.

Twitter will be fine.

donebizkit• 14 years ago

I think product visionary is not a full time job. You don't work out a vision with a pen and paper. Product visions are like good ideas, they always hit you when you are doing something completely different.

photorized2• 14 years ago

Exactly.

alexqgb• 14 years ago

This is the hardest thing to learn. Stepping away from your desk when you're under pressure is just so counter-intuitive. Even if it's often worked before, there's that voice that says "Yes, but it might not this time, and you're under the gun."

Ignore that voice.

photorized2• 14 years ago

Yes.

For the right individual (parallel entrepreneur type), time limits (due to working on more than one campaign, product, startup, etc) almost always guarantee focus, quick decision making, originality, boldness. There's no overanalyzing.

keeptrying• 14 years ago

Elon Musk ?

Jack Dorsey and Twitter: Can you have a part-time product visionary?

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