A Tale of Greed: How 4 CEOs and $5B Failed Twitter
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- Опубликовано: 28 июн 2024
- Established Titles is running a massive Black Friday sale plus 10% off any purchase with the code MBA. Become a Lord or Lady today, support global reforestation, and help preserve the natural woodlands of Scotland at establishedtitles.com/MBA! The first 200 people who purchase a title pack with our link will be effectively next to our plot.
Twitter has a new owner and his presence is sinking in. Regardless of whether or not you think Elon Musk can save Twitter, the reality is that Twitter as a private company under Elon can’t get any worse than the Twitter that has existed for the past 9 years. Twitter has struggled with declining users, engagement, turnover, innovation, infighting, losses, and vision. Twitter burned through 4 CEOs and 5 billion dollars in 10 years - regressing further away from being a viable business or attractive product.
Twitter is not just a case study of business mismanagement and poor strategy, but also a story of betrayal, ego, and greed. Since its founding, the company has been like Game of Thrones, plagued with politics and schemes. At the center of Twitter’s story, there is a founder, whose desire to be seen as a spiritual, futuristic genius was so important that he would do everything to achieve this recognition - even if it meant backstabbing friends and undermining his own company to do so.
In this episode, we’ll cover the death of Twitter, how the once-promising social media platform deteriorated to the point of an Elon Musk takeover, the schemes that brought each CEO to power, and an evaluation of their tenures, strategies, successes, and failures that have led Twitter to where it is today.
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🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf
0:00 Fly High, Crash Hard
7:49 There Are No Saints
18:29 The Noose Tightens
21:43 The Plot Thickens
35:25 The Knife Sharpens
41:38 The Straw that Broke the Camel's Back
46:43 Best Served Cold
54:43 The Prodigal Son
![Remble - Colors (ft. Mozzy & Stoneda5th) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/KF-3AU9g9xg/mqdefault.jpg)
🔊Thank you for those who have raised feedback with this episode's audio levels / volume. To help, we have added official subtitles (not the incorrect RUclips auto-generated ones) to improve viewing experience and reduce volume mismatch. We will make sure this doesn't happen again in the future.
📖The details about Twitter's founder disputes would not have been possible without the investigative reporting from journalist Nick Bilton and captured in his incredible book, Hatching Twitter. Investigative journalism into Silicon Valley is rare and deserves support. If you enjoy this episode and are interested in learning even more about Jack Dorsey and the power struggles at Twitter over the years - or if you liked David Fincher’s The Social Network or Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography, consider making Hatching Twitter your next read. This episode only provides key abstractions whereas the book serves as a comprehensive and entertaining read.
0:00 Fly High, Crash Hard
7:49 There Are No Saints
18:29 The Noose Tightens
21:43 The Plot Thickens
35:25 The Knife Sharpens
41:38 The Straw that Broke the Camel's Back
46:43 Best Served Cold
54:43 The Prodigal Son
Was just about to comment on the volume 😅
I would say re-upload it. It's really low. :/
Do we know which executives/board members are still at twitter? Has anyone survived?
@@JannesJustussame
@@JannesJustuslol same😂 great video tho MBA, thanks
Just so you know, Established Titles is a scam, so be aware
The sponsorship portion of this particular video is pretty clear in saying that what is being bought is a souvenir.
I just wanted to acknowledge that the ad for Established Titles this time is more true to the product than some other ads for it.
@@KrissieMarieEbdane Still a scam, they also have a shifty record on supporting trees.
I know. The real money issuing claims to stars in far away solar systems.
@@ronque23 Now we`re talking.
It seems more like a weak gimmick that a scam, but the ads where they claim you can “officially” be called a Lord or Lady were blatantly untrue. Send me $5 and I’ll call your pet Lizard a lord. It’s just as official and they can’t beat my prices.
Killing Vine was maybe the greatest mistake Twitter ever made. It was basically TikTok before TikTok. It’s been over five years since they closed and I still get recommended 15 minute long “RIP vine” compilations. People really loved that app
Maybe, but Tiktok has perfected the algoritm to such an extent that it would have outperformed Vine anyway. Not a user myself but from what I see and hear that app is just too good at knowing what their users want to see.
Ya
If they had increased the time from 15 seconds to 1 minute
Then TikTok would have never been able to steal there spot
And, if they didn’t closed it.
If Elon Musk restarts Vine and makes a big deal out of this. By announcing it multiple times and all.
Then easily it will get at least 10 to 50+ million downloads in a few days
@@DE-bs9cf Well, you're forgetting that Vine would've had a really long time to develop their own algorithm, since they started way earlier. That's a huge upside.
@@westboy52yeah but musically was also a thing around the time before vine even died. i think its true that vine was going to be outperformed regardless
@@DE-bs9cf As a senior eng, you don't need to "perfect the algorithm". Algorithms are already being perfected by professors and academic researchers. A tech business can easily use the latest academic algorithm. What is needed is historical data, so whoever starts first will have an advantage over the other. Twitter has more data than TikTok now, so it's possible to revive Vine and compete. But Tiktok has more relevant data for a video short form platform. So in my opinion, it's 50-50 if Twitter can be successful with Vine now.
Wow those Established Titles guys really throwing the cash around. FYI: DON'T BUY ANYTHING FROM ESTABLISHED TITLES.
This video increased my respect for Ev Williams. He definitely tried.
Somewhere out there, Noah Glass is watching all this unfold with a drink, a cigar and a long, deep, guttural laugh
Hope Noah Glass is well given that he did this originally as a side project for Odeo and Jack Dorsey ran around to VC meetings and took the credit.
Yeah I bet he’s laughing at the other founders being multi billionaires while he walked away with pretty much nothing
@@richboii6597i’d rather walk out with nothing than having no peace of mind
It astounds me how parents don’t teach their sons how to socialize and know when they’re triggering coworkers. Yeah I was a little shit growing up.
As someone that previously bought into Jack Dorsey's self-crafted mythology, I'm shocked at how things had really played out behind the scenes. Are all billionaires just narcissistic scumbags parading themselves as visionary geniuses?
Based on how Elon has been acting since the Twitter takeover, yes. These people became rich with mainly luck by being at the right place in the right time. They all have the same personality flaws as everyone else except being rich amplified those flaws by giving them the illusion that they are somehow better than others.
Yes, yes they are.
Can't they be both?
answer is no. Example is Munger and Buffett. They acknowledge successes when it's done correctly (even the CCP) and their fortune from being lucky than most at the right time and the right places. They also tend to be hands off if a company is well-run enough
Of course. A good rule of thumb is that the truth is lame. The lamer a success story sounds the more likely it is to be true.
Twitter is the best example of why bright ideas are not enough to build long lasting companies.
I think that the people involved ended up achieving their goal. They could have sold to Zuckerberg but they felt like they would look back and see it as a loss.It seems like the goal became to hire more employees and inflate or expand to bigger proportions. They wanted a bigger catch and they got it.
Jack rewriting history to portray himself as the founder of Twitter, is a legit Elon Musk and Tesla moment.
Except that Musk is absolutely the only reason Tesla exists and is successful today. Nice try though.
@@ophello He literally isnt the reason it exists. It existed when the real founders founded it.
@@ThaTurminator being charitable, you probably mean "exists today", which is probably untrue as well, since there is no way for you to know how the original creaters would have done in the long run. also even IF that was true musk even did plenty of illegal stuff, like blatantly lying to investors about his company solarcity, which to this day is still just a fraud company
@@ophello Troll
@@ophello Learn about the history of Tesla before worship that billionaire.
Its crazy how Twitter pioneered both Vine and Periscope, and both livestreaming and shortform content are crazy popular now. I think if Twitter reflected on why these were popular and expanded on them (like how Ev did with Twitter), they could have had three enormous products on their hands.
I actually don't think the issue was that Twitter was innovating too slow, but the innovation had no direction. All that investment in R&D and engineers must have created new stuff, but if top down has no direction to envision what's good then it's jello on the wall...
it rly is crazy, periscope especially worked well. if they integrated donations they would have made a lot of money
Oh no, established titles is a no good sponsor 😔 but epic video per usual!
Wow. Jack is a monster. Makes sense why he was so friendly with Elon.
Agreed. + love your music :)
I've often seen Jack being represented as a central figure of Twitter but everything that I've heard of him personally didn't fit that role but this video clears that up: He just made that up
Someone should make a 'Social Network' like film about Twitter.
Maybe it was it Glass Onion?
Good summary. But please lose the sponsorship of Established Titles; it is a complete scam.
Thanks you for showing what a snake in the grass Jack Dorsey is. I learned about Noah Glass from a coldfusion video and how Jack Dorsey literally offered him a shoulder to cry on and told him he wouldn't be removed from the company, and then the very next day Jack and Ev kicked him out and Jack took his job. He pretended to be Noah Glasses' friend and confidant so they could oust him. It's so messed up.
The crazy part is that Twitter was Toxic since birth like the coldfusion video showed. However we paid attention to Twitter being toxic once politicians started spewing propaganda on that platform. Im not so sure how Twitter will stop being toxic under Elon Musk Leadership exactly.
a few hundred million dollars and power like you've never imagined will make you do weird things.
People taking credit for inventing stuff is very common, there are many people who self-credit themselves as the inventor of the F-16 for example.
There are others who self-credit themselves as the inventor of Tesla.
could you maybe boost the audio in the future? It's very quiet compared to other videos
Hello! Thanks for a great video. Just noticed that the video volume was too low and had to put my device’s volume on max to be able to hear the narration clearly. And so whenever a commercial would pop up, it’s now too loud and had to adjust volume many times throughout the 1hr+ video. Just sending honest feedback, hope it’s helpful. Thank you! =)
I had no idea about the misdeeds of Jack Dorsey. I’ve always felt sorry for him being backstabbed and having his voting rights stolen, but I didn’t really know the whole story.
It's a story of lies anyways.
That's how you know he did a hell of a job spinning the narrative
Corporate culture is wild
Then you should watch Cold Fusion's video on Jack! A great watch exposing misdeeds.
I have a simple flowchart to know whether I should feel sorry for these people:
Q: Are they a billionaire?
Yes -> Don't feel sorry.
It says a lot that I didn't ever know, until this video, that periscope was even connected to Twitter, let alone one of their own products.
Video is too quiet, can’t hear it even at max volume in my car 😢
Same, both on earbuds and in the car i had to crank it
Yeah, I have my sound on max and every time an add pops up it blows my eardrums
So that wasn’t only me. I thought it was my bad hearing lol…
Same
He’s getting big enough where he’s going to have to hire an editor and proper audio guy.
It's funny when he talks about how bad Twitter was and assuming it couldn't get any worse under Elon Musk. Hahaha
Why?
I think twitter is better than ever under musk. Much less controversy
Heh. Came here to say the same thing. Before Musk it was “Three Mile Island”. Under Musk it’s been “Chernobyl” and “Fukushima” combined.
@@chadmcjustice6550 now it's much more, advertisers pulling out because they don't want to get put next to Nazi shit
@@chadmcjustice6550what?????
That Established Titles ad didn't age well
Elon didn't age well
Established titles is a scam!
Comment to get the algorithm to put this on the top
Hour-long Modern MBA drops: you know this is gonna be good! 🎉
I am glad that there is some information available on the subject. I had thought of Twitter as a successful business and I didn't have any idea about the problems plaguing the company until a few months ago. I wanted to try and understand why it seemed like everyone had such a different perception of the company than it actually was. Clearly they had intelligent people acting as CEO and they had a board that had prioritized profits at one time.
We gonna get a follow up video about the 5th CEO that ran Twitter into the ground?
Never ever feel bad for a billionaire. They would never do the same for you
Man that "Elon couldn't do any worse" intro aged like *milk*.
"Twitter as a private company under Elon can't get any worse than the Twitter that has existed publicly for the past 9 years".
You under-estimated Elon! 🤣
“Twitter as a private company under Elon can’t get any worse than the Twitter that has existed publicly for the past 9 years.” This statement ages like milk under summer heat lol
Only issue - the sound on the video is way too quiet.
I'm having to max everything and then get ears bled from the adverts
This changed my opinion on a lot of things around Twitter. Take a bow my man. Another top level analysis
This just shows that if they all worked together they could have made something great, but now? We just have Twitter.
If Dorsey put as much effort into making Twitter better as he did into building up a false reputation and back stabbing, he wouldn't have needed to do so to see both himself and Twitter succeed.
Holy smokes, an HOUR long episode?!
I better get myself some snacks for the night!
Thanks for the detailed analysis of Twitter’s history and the engagement + revenue history. To anyone who wants even more detail I recommend the book Hatching Twitter.
Oh hey Quincy! Fancy seeing you here.
@@marioprawirosudiro7301 yeah! Great to see Quincy taking a break from videos, to watching other videos. :D
I thought I was tripping lol
Call me an optimist, but I believe the grifter known as Elon Musk can certainly make Twitter much, much worse than it has been during the past 9 years.
He's literally gonna bankrupt it in a year. As bad as the board was since since they have overall made a profit which isn't easy when 85% of your revenue is from advertisers who can pull ads at a moment's notice.
My thoughts exactly.
Lol - watching your comment age like milk is going to be like drinking fine wine.
@@xunqianbaidu6917 How can you discern that in such a short time just out of curiosity?
I, happily, know nothing about running a large corp. but I would think it'll take a few months to shake things out and not just a few weeks(?).
@@xunqianbaidu6917 Yes but how many of those employees were truly necessary? You heard it yourself; MBA talked about how Twitter threw more & more bodies at problems even though user growth wasn't _that_ great during Dick's stint as CEO and later during Jack's second tenure. It's too early to tell, but it wouldn't surprise me given the clear mismanagement that many of these positions were low-productivity sinecures caused by an executive team that spent at least as much time playing Game of Thrones than actually taking a hard look at optimizing workflow within the company (and with a "part-time CEO" to boot!).
It's too bad that unlike Twitter, youtube doesn't have a @remindmeofthis that I can call to bring me back to this comment in 5 year's time; you might be right, but I don't see it as inevitable. Most people like or dislike Elon purely for culture war reasons, so it's difficult to tell honest critique of him from the bitterness of the laptop-class simply because he ranges from liberal-to-conservative in his views rather than progressive down the line.
This was a masterpiece, thanks for always sharing such high-quality content with us! :)
Okay, I really want to know how you make your videos. Your research and writing skills to help bring context alongside with your simple but relevant visual aids in your "presentation" is truly compelling and I want to how you do it.
There's no trick to learn, they're just more talented and creative than you 🙂
This was a masterpiece. Thank you!
The audio for this is really quiet, I have to jack up the volume a lot.
Seems the biggest mistake the company made was not completely getting rid of Dorsey the first time he was fired. it seems that the second mistake they made was not completely getting rid of Dorsey once he started to behave even worse.
Ev just wasn’t cut out to be a CEO.
I had no idea medium and twitter were related, but medium is a solid product!!
These analysis are incredible, keep up the good work ! PG.
Thank you for your support and generosity!
Could you increase the volume please?
and 6 months later, Elon puts the nail in the coffin on twitter lol
For social justice warriors, yes. For everyone else twitter is much better now.
@@MakerInMotiondo you think "everyone else" is a Muskrat?
More that comes out shows how awful Jack is as a business man and person. He has the fakest personality
Jack Dorsey definitely did a hell of a job identifying Twitter with him alone
So the company is already prepared for his successor.
n musk is doing the same. hes nuts.
Why have so many Educational RUclipsrs advertising established titles , looks like they’re on a massive marketing campaign to get the most out of the holidays spending spree
Yep. Established Titles is definitely Christmas gift fodder and they know it xD.
I also like how the scripts the RUclipsrs are now told to use have pivoted from saying "you basically legally become a lord" to "well it's more of a quirky custom and you can be called a lord if you really want to also this counts as protecting the environment.".
It's a smart flip of the script, considering Established Titles used to be the same tier as those "buy a piece of the moon" and "own a star" semi-scam companies.
@@K3end0 im shocked they have enough money to endorse youtubers and the youtubers also just casualy promote a buy a star scam
@@vicdansanch after seeing thousands of RUclipsrs uncritically shill RayCon - absolutely awful $10 Alibaba buds marketed up to 10x their worth - nothing shocks me anymore.
Honestly it's not surprising that Twitter's managerial history is so toxic considering that the community is basically the same..
absolutely brilliant video. did know all this. but, still watched. awesome story telling. Tysm :)
I always knew Dorsey was an ego maniac... but this is expose' level revelations. wild stuff, Mordern MBA. Great work.
Another RUclipsr just said established titles is a scam
Thanks for this information King !!!
Brilliant, informative high quality content! Looking forward to more of your work
I guess this is all the karma Twitter gets for killing Vine lol
Wow. Amazing research and presentation. 👏
Great write up, especially on Jack's shenanigans. I had no idea twitter had such a history, Dorsey's propaganda campaign worked so well I genuinely thought he'd made it all from the very beginning!
I guess now I know why Twitter is such a pain in the ass every time I follow a link there (and I was not signed in).
Directly comparing the sponsor to paying for twitter verification is...
Well, I'm not sure if it's an effective sales strategy, but I don't think I need to tell you that.
Would love to see a farcical parody of the social network centered around twitter, Jack specifically
This is a very informative video, thank you for all the research
Great video!
Also I'm happy this time your ad sponsor bit is a bit better labeled
The quality of your channel and videos is not reflected in your subscriber count. Please keep making videos. They're amazing and on my must watch list. I hope other people discover these as well.
Dropping a banger right before thanksgiving 🔥
Awesome video, however please note that the sound volume is a bit low. I need to set my OS and speaker volume to max. So that is something to consider for next video. Great stuff. Thank you.
Thank you very nice 👍!
May i recommend to higher the volume? Is reasonably audible only at max on my side
Damn I didn't realize this was 1 hour long, it just flew by! Subscribed
Political drama and intrigue in the business world - absolutely love this content!
i had to do a double take when i saw who uploaded. there is a unique delight of getting ModernMBA content about a topic so fresh in the zeitgeist. can't wait to watch, lol!
Very interesting video but weird ending to just kind of vaguely praise how Musk running it without giving any additional details. By all accounts, it really looks like he's not doing a particularly good job of it right now.
Musks PR skills are horrible, but business wise, all those layoffs NEEDED to happen. Twitter was hiring kids fresh out of collage with no work experience for 200K starting salary to eat free $400 lunches and "work" 5 hours a week by being in virtual meetings.
Comment hasn't aged well.
@@lisawhittaker5680 ?
Really good, I enjoyed your analysis. During your script-writing though, be careful to maintain a consistent tense structure. You often switched between past and present tense, and it was very jarring to listen to.
HOLY SHIT hour long modern MBA vid. my pre-sleep podcast gonna be good tonight
The Littlefinger comparison is apt. Whether intended or not, some of the shots of Jack make him look like Larys Strong
This channel is a masterclass of quality content. Great work
My only complaint with this one, as you have mentioned is when my earbuds were chiming on low battery it was extremely loud..
Exceptional video.
However, I'm confused as to why twitter couldn't take advantage of the pandemic. Revenue soared but simultaneously expenses also soared. What were those increased expenses? Drunk engineers marveling in their gargantuan paychecks? That can't be the only reason.
Lmaooo.”expenses “ huh? Like FTX?
They kept hiring more. The company never controlled costs. Elon musk has shown, they didn't need 75% of their employees. My guess is, Elon musk will have the firm at break even valuation in 4-5 years and then, 100% gain in 10 years. It a huge annualized return, but every rich billionaire wants a news platform to have influence
@@Tential1i guess that includes the engineers that said no no to Elon Ang got fired but we're called backed for legacy stuff lol
This video is your best work yet!
Twitter nicking developer APIs is a chilling forshadowing of what's to come for Reddit. Reddit has had its IPO in the works for 4 years and its API enabled a variety of 3rd party apps to flourish which was crucial in the mid-2010s mobile market growth to attract and keep users. Reddit has been pushing out more and more features that are only available in their official app, yet 3rd party apps still have a loyal following to this day which by nature of the original design do not show promoted tweets or any of the additional tracking done by Reddit.
My pessimistic side thinks the same will happen at Reddit when the pursuit of money trumps community spirit.
Yh, Hopfully Reddit will have its downfall 🙏🏽
Holy shit
Psychic
Haha. You were spot on
great piece of content. Thank you
Sheesh twitter ceo and founders are as toxic as the platform they have created 😭
Lmao you're not wrong
"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree" type of stuff
Nah, I still think the founder is Noah and the rest are robbers who made it as toxic as themselves
@@thunderb00m At least Noah is vindicated given that Twitter has been toxic since birth in 2005-2006 timeframe. Hope Noah is well today!
If Twitter had been bought out during/instead of the Dick Costolo era by someone going “no this needs more time in the oven”, then maybe it would he the fresh start it does admittedly need.
But the buyout wasn’t some VC using their couch cushion money on something that might not work out; it was a massive sum of money that Elon’s creditors expect to see back; while there might not be a board, there’s still seems to be external pressure to make money quickly.
Elon would only be beholden to creditors if Tesla tanked as a company. They just doubled in valuation this year alone and Elon resurged as the richest man on the planet.
In other words, Elon Musk pulled it off again. His business practices are incredibly risky and unconservative leading to very high risk of severe failure. He often skirts the limits of the law to heavily leverage and manipulate markets into giving him an edge and then works himself and his employees to exhaustion and beyond to pull off miracles. Love him or hate him, he DOES pull off miracles.
That isn't to say his business moves are good ones, even if they pay off in spades. When he super-leverages himself time and time again, he risks total collapse. And one collapse could easily undo all of his successes. Musk may not succeed at making Twitter succeed. But one should be very careful about saying anything good or bad about Musk. The way Musk operates, everything is uncertain. He could totally collapse tomorrow or quadruple his wealth overnight with massive successes.
With a person operating like that, if you say anything bad about him, he could prove you a moron overnight. And if you say anything good, the same might happen. The only thing you can reliably say about Musk is that everything he touches will do /something/. It won't stay stagnant. It's either to the moon or straight into the dirt. Don't gamble on which one.
Amazing work! A great job!
Damn, such an in-depth research.
Great work.
Masterclass should have you on to give classes on how to do a business strategy analysis video...and you can then do a video on why Masterclass will never make money.
Modern MBA drops a 1 hr long video----1 hr long!!!! My man!!!
That's a really cool comparison with Apple I remember I did some research project on Apple and I was thinking the exact same thing
Phenomenal vid as always, easily one of my favourite channels. Can you do a video on Six Flags, as it would be interesting to explore their bankruptcy as well as the controversy around their current CEO Selim Bassoul
I'm still amazed vine was shut down. Just look at how big tiktok is and also youtube shorts
Amazing content. I learned a lot
Shutting down vine cannot be understated. It is literally tiktok but 7 years ahead and was popular at the time. Has to be one of the biggest blunders of all time.
The work on this was great. If you haven't already done an episode on Twitch, might I suggest doing an analysis on that?
Wow this was in depth!
This is pretty amazing video, hope it reaches everyone.
Amazing deep dive thanks for this contexr
Would love for you to do a follow up on this one, one day!
All that buildup to just ignore how Parag lucked into a massive buyout and Elon shittalked his way into burning $44 billion to the ground
Bro literally threw 44 billion into a black pit, good on him tbh.
I didn't know the full story until I saw this video! Great content man.
Suggestion: If you can do something about audio, it's too low volume.
Keep up the good work!
This explains why my 14-year-old self felt the need to create a Twitter account in like 2016, for Minecraft crap, and explains why I knew who the f Jack Dorsey was.
Great analysis, this needs to blow up! Get more views, this is actually more valuable than some college courses, no joke. 💜
lmao, college courses = negative value