How Twitter Got Desperate Enough To Hire Two Part-Timers To Lead Product

Twitter's new executive chairman and product leader, Jack Dorsey, is also the fulltime CEO of another startup, Square.

Twitter's new director of product management, Satya Patel, will also be splitting his professional time with another concern – Battery Ventures, where he'll continue working as an advisor to portfolio companies.

Is Twitter really in such desperate shape that it's willing to hire product leaders who want to maintain other jobs?

In a word: Yes.

Here's an anecdote to illustrate how badly things are messed up over there right now.

Remember that whole "#Dickbar" controversy, where Twitter updated its iPhone app so that a "QuickBar" showing Twitter trends and ads would show up in every users Twitter stream?

People hated it.

They hated it for two reasons – one less fair than the other.

The unfair reason: the QuickBar put ads in the Twitter stream. That's unfair because you had to know ads were coming.

The fair reason: the QuickBar put Twitter's useless, crass, and irrelevant "trends" in every user's face. 

Instapaper creator and UI genius Marco Arment hit this complaint hard, writing, "It’s a news ticker limited to one-word items, lacking any context, broadcasting mostly topics that I don’t understand, recognize, or care about. It’s nonsensical. At worst, it can offend. At best, it will confuse."

Anyway, the #DickBar was not good. But that's not the point. Even companies with good product teams launch sucky products sometimes.

The fact that indicates Twitter's whole product process is in bad shape is this: A source briefed on the ordeal tells us that the QuickBar was launched, essentially out of the blue, by a junior product manager – without any review from the company's senior leadership. Dick Costolo, Twitter CEO and #DickBar namesake, is said to have been livid after the ensuing controversy.

Whoops.

How did #DickBar happen?

Apparently, Twitter has a very horizontal org-structure. The reason Twitter has such a structure, say observers, is because "that's the way Facebook does it."

Of course, what Facebook has and Twitter does not, is Mark Zuckerberg – a senior executive and product visionary who is comfortable getting elbow deep in product development. In fact, after Ev Williams stepped down as Twitter CEO last fall – and his top product lieutenant, Jason Goldman, followed suit – Twitter had almost zero product leadership at all.

The good news is that, in Jack Dorsey and Satya Patel, Twitter now has that kind of leadership.

The bad news is that it has it on a part-time basis.

We reached out to Twitter to discuss this story but we never heard back.

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See Also:

• Twitter In Negotiations To Bring Jack Dorsey Back As Chief Product Officer
• HERE IT IS: Jack Dorsey's Three-Part Plan To Fix Twitter
• LOOMING DISASTER: Jack Dorsey's Return To Twitter -- The SAIcast

How Twitter Got Desperate Enough To Hire Two Part-Timers To Lead Product

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DST About To Lead Huge Spotify Funding

European streaming music startup Spotify is in the process of closing a very large financing, say multiple sources. DST, the venture firm that has backed Facebook, Groupon and Zynga, is said to be leading the deal, which values Spotify at around $1 billion. The size of the round will be $100 million or more, say our sources. The company has raised at least €82.3 million to date, including a relatively small round of financing a year ago from Founders Fund. This new round, though, is at a much higher valuation. The Founders Fund round was rumored to be at a similar valuation as the previous round, a 2009 financing that valued the company at around €200 million.

DST About To Lead Huge Spotify Funding

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Here's How Amazon Took The Lead In The Billion Dollar EBook Market -- And Why We Think They'll Dominate (AMZN)

The most interesting thing about last night's report that the ebook market will reach $1 billion this year wasn't so much that number -- through it's impressive, especially considering the growth rate -- but that Amazon has a full 50% marketshare there thanks to its Kindle platform.

When Apple announced the iPad with its iBookstore many people thought the inferior Kindle would be toast, but by letting people read Kindle books on any device, Amazon has preserved, and even arguably gained, marketshare. Today, most of the people who read books on iPad do it on the Kindle app.

The ebook market is a battle of the titans. It's Amazon versus Apple versus Barnes & Noble versus Sony. It also crucially involves all the big publishers, who are scared of going digital but know they must embrace it lest they go the way of the music industry, and so have been taking two steps forward and one step back.

But Amazon played beautifully every step of the game. And now, in a market that is growing very big, very fast, and probably has strong network effects, it has an early lead which makes us think it will end up dominating it. In fact, we think Amazon's marketshare will end up closer to 90%.

Here's how it happened and why we think Amazon can't be stopped.

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See Also:

• Nook Fanboys Agree: The Skeptics Are Idiots
• Who Says Folks Don't Read Anymore? EBook Market Reaches $1 BILLION
• Hey, Amazon, Tell Us The Kindle Numbers -- Or Shut Up About Them!

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