Tech

Jack Dorsey just blew up Twitter's org structure to prepare it for the next decade

Key Points
  • Ed Ho, who has been on leave since May, explained in a series of tweets his decision was based largely on an unexpected family loss.
  • Kayvon Beykpour, general manager of video and former Periscope CEO, will take over for Ho on the product end, while Ho will step into a part time role.
  • Ho's move is only one in a larger reorganization hitting the leadership structure at Twitter.
Jack Dorsey, CEO and co-founder of Twitter and founder and CEO of Square
Mike Segar | Reuters

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced a sweeping reorganization at the social media network on Thursday, just as Ed Ho, a vice president of product and engineering, announced he would step down into a part-time position.

The change organizes Twitter into functional groups, such as engineering, instead of around individual products, which Dorsey said in a series of tweets would help the company be quicker and more creative over the next decade.

In a series of tweets, Dorsey said he decided on the changes in the interest of "simplifying the way we work" and making the organization "more straightforward."

"A pure end-to-end functional organization will drive clearer decision-making, enable us to foster stronger culture...and most importantly, sets us up for more creativity and invention, which is the phase we must now enter to continue to be relevant and important to the world," Dorsey wrote.

@jack tweet: We‘re reorganizing how Twitter is going to work together for the next decade. Sent this note to our team, and sharing with the world, because we want to be more open about how we think and work. This is a small but important step. Experimenting! Let us know what you think

@jack tweet

Kayvon Beykpour, general manager of video and former Periscope CEO, will take over for Ho on the product end, while Ho will step into a part-time role. Ho, who has been on leave since May, explained in a series of tweets his decision was based largely on an unexpected family loss.

@mrdonut tweet: So, today marks my last day as the General Manager of Bluebird (@Twitter's Consumer Product and Engineering group) and the start of a new chapter for Bluebird, no longer as a single team of 600+ people led by a GM. A thread to commemorate the past 2+ years

Ho took a prominent and vocal role at Twitter amid the scandals involving Russian trolls and disinformation on social media. Beykpour will be the sixth executive to run Twitter product since early 2014, Recode reported. Turnover in the role is so high, Vanity Fair once called the job "cursed."