At this moment on 10/31/22, only one person at Twitter knows what the master plan (no pun intended) is, or if there is a plan. But I can only live by what I perceive; and what has happened there recently just seems wrong. The 7,500 or so employees who poured so much into that product shouldn’t have had to deal with such uncertainty and whimsicality from their leaders. And while Bret Taylor wins accolades for handling the deal beautifully on behalf of Twitter’s shareholders (who walked away with $54.20 per share), I wish he or the rest of Twitter leadership had done more to protect their employees.
And while it’s of no consequence to the world, I can do the one thing in my control:
To be honest, Twitter was a mixed bag; I simultaneously loved and hated the product. Loved, for connectiong me to voices I wouldn’t have normally heard. Voices like Michael Harriot, Marco Rogers, Timnit Gebru, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Scott Shapiro, and Mark Hamill brought a lot of joy to my life. Hated, for the cesspool of anonymous trolls that made ordinary peoples’ lives hell, and for the extent of social harm (doxxing, trolling, vaccine misinformation, etc.) they allowed for the sake of capitalism. Political division drives engagement on the platform, after all. And their leaders just couldn’t face up to their stockholders enough to create a safe platform for their most vulnerable users. All of them had ham-handed half measures: from Jack Dorsey to Del Harvey to Vijaya Gadde (who probably got the closest to doing some real good for this platform).
“Broken Bird” by the great Nikkolas Smith
And now, with even those paltry attempts at doing the right thing going away, it is time to say goodbye to Twitter. Here are some highlights from my time on there:
That time Gene Kim noticed this pokey little blog:
Recognition for a conference talk at DeveloperWeek NY:
Fun times at Lead Dev Austin:
Even more fun times at ThoughtWorks XConf NY
Update: here’s a great documentary about the incompetence and selfishness of Twitter’s past CEOs.