Twitter fired two of its top managers Friday, the latest sign of internal turmoil amid Tesla billionaire Elon Musk's planned buyout of the company.
Kayvon Beykpour, general manager of consumer Twitter, leading design, research, product, engineering and customer service and operations teams has been fired lafter 7 years of being in the firm. Beykpour said CEO Parag Agrawal asked him to leave after letting him know that he wanted to take the team in a different direction.
A co-founder of the live streaming app Periscope, Beykpour joined Twitter when the social media company bought his startup in 2015. I hope and expect that Twitter's best days are still ahead of it. Twitter is one of the most important, unique and impactful products in the world. With the right nurturing and stewardship, that impact will only grow, he said on Twitter.
Bruce Falck, Twitter's revenue and product lead, was also fired. His Twitter bio now says unemployed. I dedicate this Tweet to those engineers and thank you ALL for the opportunity to serve alongside you. It's been awesome. There is a lot more to do so get back to work, I can't wait to see what you build, Falck tweeted.
Confirmiing both departures, Twitter said the company is pausing most hiring and except for business critical roles. In addition, it said in a statement, we are pulling back on non-labor costs to ensure we are being responsible and efficient.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal posted a series tweets motivating the team and also explaining why he decided to fire two top executives. "A lot has happened over the past several weeks. I’ve been focused on the company and haven't said much publicly during this time, but I will now, " Parag Agrawal tweeted
“So what can you expect from me going forward? I’m still focused on doing the job, and that includes making hard decisions as needed. I will continue to embrace the deep complexities of our service and our business. And you can expect more change for the better,” Parag Agrawal said in his tweet.
"While I expect the deal to close, we need to be prepared for all scenarios and always do what’s right for Twitter. I’m accountable for leading and operating Twitter, and our job is to build a stronger Twitter every day."
Agrawal said that people at the company are taking responsiblity for their product. "No one at Twitter is working just to keep the lights on. We take pride in our work. Regardless of the company’s future ownership, we’re here improving Twitter as a product and business for customers, partners, shareholders, and all of you," he said in the tweet.
"People have also asked: why manage costs now vs after close? Our industry is in a very challenging macro environment – right now. I won’t use the deal as an excuse to avoid making important decisions for the health of the company, nor will any leader at Twitter."
"I will also try to bring more transparency to the work that we do. You won’t see tweets from me on the ‘topic of the day’ or the loudest sound bite, but rather on the ongoing, continuous, and challenging work our teams are doing to improve the public conversation on Twitter, " Parag Agrawal tweeted.
(With inputs from PTI)
