Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal removes two senior executives; pauses hiring
What's the story
Twitter is going through an uneasy transition as it prepares for Elon Musk's $44 billion acquisition. The uneasiness has spread to the top as two senior executives of the company are heading toward the exit. Kayvon Beykpour, consumer product leader, and Bruce Falck, general manager of revenue, have been fired by CEO Parag Agrawal. The company has also frozen hiring except for critical roles.
Context
Why does this story matter?
The sudden change at the top of the tree in Twitter has caught many by surprise. As the company readies itself to usher into the Musk era, there are questions about the connection between both. Agrawal claims that the change is required for the new direction the company is heading in. And in that journey, we may see many unexpected changes.
Memo
Agrawal confirmed the exits through a memo to employees
Twitter's decision to fire Beykpour and Falck was announced by CEO Agrawal via a memo sent to the employees. He also confirmed that Jay Sullivan, an ex-Facebook director, will be the new head of product and interim head of revenue. The memo also talked about the company's plan to freeze all hiring except for critical business roles and to cut non-labor costs.
Information
Beykpour and Falck tweeted about being ousted by Agrawal
Beykpour and Falck took to Twitter to react to their ousting from the company. Both confirmed that they were fired by Agrawal. Interestingly, Agrawal himself responded to their tweets, thanking the men for their work.
Twitter Post
Beykpour expressed his displeasure at being fired
The truth is that this isn’t how and when I imagined leaving Twitter, and this wasn’t my decision. Parag asked me to leave after letting me know that he wants to take the team in a different direction.
— Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) May 12, 2022
Responsibilities
Beykpour oversaw several feature launches during his time
Beykpour co-founded Periscope, a live-streaming platform that was acquired by Twitter in 2015. In 2018, he became the company's head of consumer product and since then, oversaw a very productive period for new feature launches. Falck's work is not quite visible to the outside world. He was in the news for talking about subscriptions as a way to generate revenue.