Jack Dorsey’s Twitter exit is a milestone in social media’s midlife crisis
What’s next for Twitter’s former CEO?
Social media’s midlife crisis
Dorsey’s move was not entirely unexpected. For more than a year, he has been underintense pressurefrom activist investors to accelerate Twitter’s development and improve its financial performance.
Wall Street investors have criticized Dorsey’s outside interests, which include running payments giant Square, which he founded during his last Twitter exile,as well aspursuingfuturistic projectscentered arounddecentralizing(meaning removing traditional corporate control from) the internet and finance. Notably, Twitter’s share price shot up with the announcement, only to be pulled down with the rest of the market as it worries about the COVID omicron variant.
I sense a similarity here between Dorsey and other digital moguls such as Jeff Bezos and, once again, Musk. Like Dorsey, Bezos and Musk both run two companies in Amazon/Blue Origin and Tesla/SpaceX respectively, as well as seeking different forms of excitement and adventure, withBezos’ effortsto reach space orbit and Musk sending aTesla Roadstersports car into space. It all seems to signify mega-tech founders becoming dissatisfied with the monotonous management of their most famous companies and looking for something more.
In the case of Twitter, there is also the social-media dimension. Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are increasingly burdened by political controversy and complex issues such as disinformation, privacy breaches, and hate speech.Twitter, for example,became the megaphone of choice for Donald Trump before later banning him, and is having to wrestle withhate speechas a global issue. It is sometimes said that these companies are facing asocial media midlife crisis.
Dorsey’s reference to “founder ego” in his farewell message to Twitter and staff can only be interpreted as a poke at Mark Zuckerberg, who has shown no signs of relinquishing control over Facebook/Meta. On the contrary, he is looking to further develop the company’s influence by upgrading its operations to a morevirtual reality versionof the internet known as themetaverse or 3Dweb. There are no simple solutions, so it makes sense that someone like Dorsey might get more thrilled by creating novel things than mending existing ones. It might make sense to hand over control of your empire to others and set off in quest of new horizons.
When Facebook made its historic announcement in October that it was rebranding as Meta,Dorsey’s tweetshinted at his disapproval of Zuckerberg’s decision to stay on. Despite Dorsey insisting this week that he loves Twitter, I suspect he sees difficult times ahead for social media companies and even the concept of these “traditional” platforms.
In my view, the days are gone when young developers wanted to work for Google, Facebook, or Twitter. They now seem more interested in “flipping” NFTs (buying and selling these digital collectibles for a quick profit) and writing applications for the (non-Meta) metaverse. Meanwhile, regulators areincreasing the heaton Silicon Valley’s old guard over their ethical standards around content and use of data. And if the metaverse is the future, it raises questions about exactly how a microblogging platform with a narrow user-base fits into this new 3D era.
What next for Jack
While Dorsey has handed control of Twitter to 37-year-old chief technology officerParag Agrawal, he will have more time to focus on Square. The payments firm is valued at nearly US$100 billion (£75 billion) – more than double Twitter – and one of its main focuses has been to move cryptocurrencies into the mainstream.
Square hasbitcoin on its balance sheet and is planning to launch a decentralized crypto exchange called tbDEX, as well as potentially moving into bitcoin mining (the creation of new bitcoin). Dorsey is also an angel investor in numerous other projects, includingmusic streaming appTidal, in which rapper Jay Z is a co-investor.
In many respects, the cryptocurrency landscape has inherited the loose, freewheeling attitude that characterized the early days of social media platforms. Decentralized start-ups like finance platformCompound, crypto exchangeUniswapand currency makerMakerDaoare making big profits and becoming more and more popular.
They are dominated by eccentric geniuses such as Uniswap creatorHayden Adamsand MakerDao’sRune Christensen, who have unusual backgrounds and voracious appetites for risk. It will look like an appealing landing site for burned-out tech professionals trying to rekindle their optimism.
As I always say to my students, we are living in anage of acceleration, where technology is developing at a rate faster than what any individual can keep up with. To survive this, we need a new way of thinking about technology.
Silicon Valley CEOs like Jack Dorsey were the catalysts for this era, and now they too have to adapt and reinvent the very world they created. Dorsey has the advantage that he has had one foot in this new camp for some time. His departure does not give me a great deal of confidence in traditional social media, but it could give added impetus to crypto and tech start-ups.
Article byTheo Tzanidis, Senior Lecturer in Digital Marketing,University of the West of Scotland
This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.
Story byThe Conversation
An independent news and commentary website produced by academics and journalists.An independent news and commentary website produced by academics and journalists.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.
