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Actually, a CEO is accountable for everything. Absolutely everything. The buck stops at the CEO, and anyone who thinks otherwise is misguided. Therefore, the is

Actually, a CEO is accountable for everything. Absolutely everything. The buck stops at the CEO, and anyone who thinks otherwise is misguided. Therefore, the issues at Twitter are Jack's fault, full stop.

StudentStuff 9y ago
Definitely, a CEO is accountable for everything, but a CEO's influence is quite limited overall, their biggest power is to shut down whole divisions of a company, but actually changing said division? That is a much more difficult task that a CEO cannot achieve on their own, no matter the effort put into said task.
- jdmichal 9y ago
  The biggest power of a CEO is culture. Look at Uber and all the negativity their culture is getting, fed by the specific instances where that culture allowed terrible things to happen. And yes, a CEO does not change the culture on their own. That's impossible by definition -- the culture is the sum result of all the actors within the company. But a CEO is expected to lead the culture of the entire company, typically by stating values and setting goals and incentives that actually match those values. If they cannot do this, then they are unable to do their primary internal-facing job. This is one of the reasons that Steve Jobs was so well regarded. For whatever flaws he had, there was no mistaking the culture he was leading, and the results matched. A great example, from a development perspective, is unit tests. Everyone loves to talk about how much we need unit tests. How great unit tests are. How they will make our software better. This is stating values, but you also have to back that up, and that's where things fall apart. The moment any kind of crunch happens, unit tests are the first things thrown out the window. Despite the fact that when you're working quickly, you probably need those tests even more. And all this is because, even though everyone states the value of tests, it's not actually part of the culture. The goals and incentives aren't there; there's no penalty to not following the line.
  - speedplane 9y ago
    > The biggest power of a CEO is culture. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this, but it seems a bit simplistic. CEO's are also in the position to be thought leaders, public advocates, build hype, and internally, guide the company to specific results. Workplace culture is extremely important, but not everything. Also, I'm not sure that enforcing unit tests is exactly a "cultural" issue. How many unit tests you write is a decision that weighs current development speed against future development speed and reliability. That is of course influenced by culture, but not exactly culture itself.
    - jdmichal 9y ago
      > I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this, but it seems a bit simplistic. CEO's are also in the position to be thought leaders, public advocates, build hype, and internally, guide the company to specific results. At least the first three of those are different ways of setting culture. The last one is so loosely defined that it could mean anything. The sum of all actions of all actors within a company is its culture. If people act in an obsessive way about UX, then you have a culture of obsessive UX. The CEO has the power to shift these cultures. There are many tools, as you point out, but the biggest one is setting appropriate goals, with the proper aligning (dis)incentive structure. These are set on his subordinates, who then filter it down and specify it for their subordinates, and so on down the entire chain. > Also, I'm not sure that enforcing unit tests is exactly a "cultural" issue. How many unit tests you write is a decision that weighs current development speed against future development speed and reliability. That is of course influenced by culture, but not exactly culture itself. If you supposedly have a culture that values writing unit tests, then that should be reflected in action. The idea of tossing unit tests should be met with disdain, the same way we value not murdering people and murder is meet with disdain. It's not about tradeoffs, it's about stated cultural values (talk) versus the actual culture (walk). If there's nothing holding you to the stated cultural values, that's a management failure.
      - speedplane 9y ago
        Normally, I would consider culture to be work ethic and how employees treat each other beyond the purely transactional business sense. You're defining it to be something much broader, that's fine, but I think that broader undertanding is better captured by the word "leadership". And as far as my last factor ("internally, guide the company to specific results"), I mean that CEOs make a lot of day-to-day tactical decisions. E.g., how many engineer/sales/marketing people do we add to that team, do we need a bigger office, do we sue someone or not, do we take VC money on the offered terms or hold out for something better. These tactical decisions are less visible, but probably make up a good deal of a CEOs day.
faceyspacey 9y ago
I agree. I also think Twitter's in a rough place for one reason: 140 characters doesn't make sense anymore. But dropping it would be even scarier for them, as that's been their defining thing for so long. When did 140 chars make sense? In the beginning of the social internet 10 years ago. For people new to sharing, it relieved pressure around saying something. For psychological reasons the false restriction made sharing on the internet frictionless. When the expectation is intentionally low, you don't have to worry if you're sharing enough or too little. And perhaps more subconsciously, such a low limit just kind of speaks to you, saying: "just say anything, and spit out." But now, people are very accustomed to sharing. They don't need these training wheels. It seems to me, regular people don't use twitter. Only various professional niches. That's just a problem, and will result in Twitter leaking users from their staple niches gradually over time, and probably has been going on for a long time now. So in short, Jack's job and the decision he has to make is a very hard one. They've been too scared to make the hardest of decisions, and very naturally as a result have only rolled out these minor attempts. It seems like a very logical sequence of events to me. They gotta do something bold, or die. I'm not saying removing the limit is the answer on its own. I think it's more of a symbol of a willingness and capability to get back in the game. Do that along with something totally fresh front-and-center within the feed, and they would have a good recipe for success. Make a big moment out of dropping the restriction, and see what happens. Hell, try it for 30 days, and see what happens as a grand experiment.
- QML 9y ago
  The 140 characters make sense — if you do textual analysis, the average sentence turns out to be around that number of characters. The issue is that Twitter is seen as a medium of expression, but I don’t think it’s suppose to be a platform where people go in-depth with their thoughts; more for momentarily formed opinions, ideas, or announcements. For publishment, people should be using something like Medium.
  - speedplane 9y ago
    Every new medium of communication effects the substance of that communication. I doubt they can change the 140 character limit without changing the substance of conversation, but that may be the point.

StudentStuff 9y ago

Definitely, a CEO is accountable for everything, but a CEO's influence is quite limited overall, their biggest power is to shut down whole divisions of a company, but actually changing said division? That is a much more difficult task that a CEO cannot achieve on their own, no matter the effort put into said task.

jdmichal 9y ago
The biggest power of a CEO is culture. Look at Uber and all the negativity their culture is getting, fed by the specific instances where that culture allowed terrible things to happen. And yes, a CEO does not change the culture on their own. That's impossible by definition -- the culture is the sum result of all the actors within the company. But a CEO is expected to lead the culture of the entire company, typically by stating values and setting goals and incentives that actually match those values. If they cannot do this, then they are unable to do their primary internal-facing job. This is one of the reasons that Steve Jobs was so well regarded. For whatever flaws he had, there was no mistaking the culture he was leading, and the results matched. A great example, from a development perspective, is unit tests. Everyone loves to talk about how much we need unit tests. How great unit tests are. How they will make our software better. This is stating values, but you also have to back that up, and that's where things fall apart. The moment any kind of crunch happens, unit tests are the first things thrown out the window. Despite the fact that when you're working quickly, you probably need those tests even more. And all this is because, even though everyone states the value of tests, it's not actually part of the culture. The goals and incentives aren't there; there's no penalty to not following the line.
- speedplane 9y ago
  > The biggest power of a CEO is culture. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this, but it seems a bit simplistic. CEO's are also in the position to be thought leaders, public advocates, build hype, and internally, guide the company to specific results. Workplace culture is extremely important, but not everything. Also, I'm not sure that enforcing unit tests is exactly a "cultural" issue. How many unit tests you write is a decision that weighs current development speed against future development speed and reliability. That is of course influenced by culture, but not exactly culture itself.
  - jdmichal 9y ago
    > I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this, but it seems a bit simplistic. CEO's are also in the position to be thought leaders, public advocates, build hype, and internally, guide the company to specific results. At least the first three of those are different ways of setting culture. The last one is so loosely defined that it could mean anything. The sum of all actions of all actors within a company is its culture. If people act in an obsessive way about UX, then you have a culture of obsessive UX. The CEO has the power to shift these cultures. There are many tools, as you point out, but the biggest one is setting appropriate goals, with the proper aligning (dis)incentive structure. These are set on his subordinates, who then filter it down and specify it for their subordinates, and so on down the entire chain. > Also, I'm not sure that enforcing unit tests is exactly a "cultural" issue. How many unit tests you write is a decision that weighs current development speed against future development speed and reliability. That is of course influenced by culture, but not exactly culture itself. If you supposedly have a culture that values writing unit tests, then that should be reflected in action. The idea of tossing unit tests should be met with disdain, the same way we value not murdering people and murder is meet with disdain. It's not about tradeoffs, it's about stated cultural values (talk) versus the actual culture (walk). If there's nothing holding you to the stated cultural values, that's a management failure.
    - speedplane 9y ago
      Normally, I would consider culture to be work ethic and how employees treat each other beyond the purely transactional business sense. You're defining it to be something much broader, that's fine, but I think that broader undertanding is better captured by the word "leadership". And as far as my last factor ("internally, guide the company to specific results"), I mean that CEOs make a lot of day-to-day tactical decisions. E.g., how many engineer/sales/marketing people do we add to that team, do we need a bigger office, do we sue someone or not, do we take VC money on the offered terms or hold out for something better. These tactical decisions are less visible, but probably make up a good deal of a CEOs day.

faceyspacey 9y ago

I agree. I also think Twitter's in a rough place for one reason: 140 characters doesn't make sense anymore. But dropping it would be even scarier for them, as that's been their defining thing for so long. When did 140 chars make sense? In the beginning of the social internet 10 years ago. For people new to sharing, it relieved pressure around saying something. For psychological reasons the false restriction made sharing on the internet frictionless. When the expectation is intentionally low, you don't have to worry if you're sharing enough or too little. And perhaps more subconsciously, such a low limit just kind of speaks to you, saying: "just say anything, and spit out." But now, people are very accustomed to sharing. They don't need these training wheels. It seems to me, regular people don't use twitter. Only various professional niches. That's just a problem, and will result in Twitter leaking users from their staple niches gradually over time, and probably has been going on for a long time now. So in short, Jack's job and the decision he has to make is a very hard one. They've been too scared to make the hardest of decisions, and very naturally as a result have only rolled out these minor attempts. It seems like a very logical sequence of events to me. They gotta do something bold, or die. I'm not saying removing the limit is the answer on its own. I think it's more of a symbol of a willingness and capability to get back in the game. Do that along with something totally fresh front-and-center within the feed, and they would have a good recipe for success. Make a big moment out of dropping the restriction, and see what happens. Hell, try it for 30 days, and see what happens as a grand experiment.

QML 9y ago
The 140 characters make sense — if you do textual analysis, the average sentence turns out to be around that number of characters. The issue is that Twitter is seen as a medium of expression, but I don’t think it’s suppose to be a platform where people go in-depth with their thoughts; more for momentarily formed opinions, ideas, or announcements. For publishment, people should be using something like Medium.
- speedplane 9y ago
  Every new medium of communication effects the substance of that communication. I doubt they can change the 140 character limit without changing the substance of conversation, but that may be the point.