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It's also why George Hu left Twilio. Because Jeff wanted to be a celebrity CEO, and it was to the detriment of the company. All of Twilio's growth (as a publi

It's also why George Hu left Twilio. Because Jeff wanted to be a celebrity CEO, and it was to the detriment of the company. All of Twilio's growth (as a public company) happened on George's watch. I don't think it's a coincidence that well after George left, on Jeff's watch - they had to do 3 different layoff for a total of ~24% of their entire public company being let go. Note: former senior level Twilio employee, posted anonymous for obvious reasons.

vehementi 3y ago
Did any of those layoffs coincide with the global layoffs?
- Moto7451 3y ago
  September of 2022, Feb 2023, and December 2023. So no, kinda, and no.
  - darth_avocado 3y ago
    Sep 2022 and Feb 2023 was the peak layoff season in the industry. Mostly guided by interest rate hikes.
jmacd 3y ago
George Hu cut his teeth under Benioff during the most meteoric rise of both Salesforce and Benioff's celebrity. I would be very surprised if Jeff's desire to be a public facing CEO would even cause George to notice, let alone bristle at. It's more likely that someone as smart as George might have just looked at the fundamentals of the business and decided it could not keep this up over the long term. or... it might have just been epic timing too. Probably.
- kelnos 3y ago
  I don't have any direct knowledge, but the gossip flying around internally at the time was that a big part of George leaving Twilio was because he wanted the CEO role, but knew Jeff wasn't going to leave and give it to him. That was gossip, of course; sure, George may have decided back then that -- even with all the growth he drove -- Twilio wasn't going anywhere long-term.
  - jmacd 3y ago
    The fact that George has not taken on a CEO role since tells me that it probably wasn't a driving factor for him. That's conjecture though. I think that role would be available to him at a lot of strong companies if that was his goal.
marcinzm 3y ago
Being a celebrity CEO makes sense when interest rates are low and your main job is to keep convincing investors to pump in money. Of course when interest rates are high, and your main job is business and company fundamentals that's a lot less useful. I'm seeing a lot of startups (and public companies) with CEOs like that floundering right now.
gkoberger 3y ago
This is a genuine question... isn't that his job? For a public company, the CEO has to be a public CEO. Everyone takes on a different persona (some sell themselves as business geniuses, others as creative geniuses, and others as someone you wanna grab a beer with). Some really like it, and some do it begrudgingly. But at the end of the day, you can't be the same CEO of a public company as you were when you were private. I've never known Jeff to hobnob with celebrities, travel in luxury or abandon his company. I'm not sure he's a "celebrity CEO" as much as he just became a public one, although I don't know him personally. (FWIW, this is the reason I'd never want to go public. I personally don't like the system, but that doesn't mean it's not how the system works.)
- wslh 3y ago
  > For a public company, the CEO has to be a celebrity CEO. No. Look at S&P 500 CEOs.
- marcinzm 3y ago
  I've seen celebrity CEOs in non-public companies a lot more than in public companies. There is a difference between being the public face of the company and being a celebrity CEO.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  Only if you pretend that the CEOs job is purely for raising money. Nominally, CEOs are supposed to run the company and help brew the culture that makes that company productive. We've grown a bunch of celebrity CEOs because people stopped caring about how companies worked over the last 10 years of low interest rates. But now that it's harder to raise money, it's time to see these guys run the companies they built.
  - gkoberger 3y ago
    Everything you said here is true, but I don't think it applies to Twilio or Jeff. I don't think you can accuse Jeff of not caring about company culture. He built one of the defining dev cultures out there. Yes, this have changed as they've grown, but I've always found the people and offices of Twilio to be warm, productive and smart. And Twilio was forged in the hardest time to raise money ever... 2008. If anyone knows how hard it is to build in a climate without easy money, it would be Jeff.
swyx 3y ago
is that you, George Hu?
antiraza 3y ago
I don't know the specifics of these two CEOs, but those were two very different eras financially in the tech sector. To nail all of it on just a CEO's door feels reductive, at best.
EMCymatics 3y ago
Why would that be why George Hu left Twilio? A CEO has to be the face of the company and needs a good reputation. It seems like he was a good leader. From an outsider it looks wrong.
pinkfairy10 3y ago
...George left right as ZIRP ended. Maybe coincidence but that played a big part in TWLO's growth and subsequent stalling as well
anildash 3y ago
Please. George joined the company when it was damn near a decade old, and already a publicly-traded company. It's embarrassing to ascribe anywhere near the agency to someone like that than to a founder.

vehementi 3y ago

Did any of those layoffs coincide with the global layoffs?

Moto7451 3y ago
September of 2022, Feb 2023, and December 2023. So no, kinda, and no.
- darth_avocado 3y ago
  Sep 2022 and Feb 2023 was the peak layoff season in the industry. Mostly guided by interest rate hikes.

jmacd 3y ago

George Hu cut his teeth under Benioff during the most meteoric rise of both Salesforce and Benioff's celebrity. I would be very surprised if Jeff's desire to be a public facing CEO would even cause George to notice, let alone bristle at. It's more likely that someone as smart as George might have just looked at the fundamentals of the business and decided it could not keep this up over the long term. or... it might have just been epic timing too. Probably.

kelnos 3y ago
I don't have any direct knowledge, but the gossip flying around internally at the time was that a big part of George leaving Twilio was because he wanted the CEO role, but knew Jeff wasn't going to leave and give it to him. That was gossip, of course; sure, George may have decided back then that -- even with all the growth he drove -- Twilio wasn't going anywhere long-term.
- jmacd 3y ago
  The fact that George has not taken on a CEO role since tells me that it probably wasn't a driving factor for him. That's conjecture though. I think that role would be available to him at a lot of strong companies if that was his goal.

marcinzm 3y ago

Being a celebrity CEO makes sense when interest rates are low and your main job is to keep convincing investors to pump in money. Of course when interest rates are high, and your main job is business and company fundamentals that's a lot less useful. I'm seeing a lot of startups (and public companies) with CEOs like that floundering right now.

gkoberger 3y ago

This is a genuine question... isn't that his job? For a public company, the CEO has to be a public CEO. Everyone takes on a different persona (some sell themselves as business geniuses, others as creative geniuses, and others as someone you wanna grab a beer with). Some really like it, and some do it begrudgingly. But at the end of the day, you can't be the same CEO of a public company as you were when you were private. I've never known Jeff to hobnob with celebrities, travel in luxury or abandon his company. I'm not sure he's a "celebrity CEO" as much as he just became a public one, although I don't know him personally. (FWIW, this is the reason I'd never want to go public. I personally don't like the system, but that doesn't mean it's not how the system works.)

wslh 3y ago
> For a public company, the CEO has to be a celebrity CEO. No. Look at S&P 500 CEOs.
marcinzm 3y ago
I've seen celebrity CEOs in non-public companies a lot more than in public companies. There is a difference between being the public face of the company and being a celebrity CEO.
dragontamer 3y ago
Only if you pretend that the CEOs job is purely for raising money. Nominally, CEOs are supposed to run the company and help brew the culture that makes that company productive. We've grown a bunch of celebrity CEOs because people stopped caring about how companies worked over the last 10 years of low interest rates. But now that it's harder to raise money, it's time to see these guys run the companies they built.
- gkoberger 3y ago
  Everything you said here is true, but I don't think it applies to Twilio or Jeff. I don't think you can accuse Jeff of not caring about company culture. He built one of the defining dev cultures out there. Yes, this have changed as they've grown, but I've always found the people and offices of Twilio to be warm, productive and smart. And Twilio was forged in the hardest time to raise money ever... 2008. If anyone knows how hard it is to build in a climate without easy money, it would be Jeff.

swyx 3y ago

is that you, George Hu?

antiraza 3y ago

I don't know the specifics of these two CEOs, but those were two very different eras financially in the tech sector. To nail all of it on just a CEO's door feels reductive, at best.

EMCymatics 3y ago

Why would that be why George Hu left Twilio? A CEO has to be the face of the company and needs a good reputation. It seems like he was a good leader. From an outsider it looks wrong.

pinkfairy10 3y ago

...George left right as ZIRP ended. Maybe coincidence but that played a big part in TWLO's growth and subsequent stalling as well

anildash 3y ago

Please. George joined the company when it was damn near a decade old, and already a publicly-traded company. It's embarrassing to ascribe anywhere near the agency to someone like that than to a founder.