Twitter CEO steps down, COO comes in
In an announcement on the Twitter blog, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams stepped down from his post as CEO and asked Twitter COO Dick Costolo to take the reigns over. In the blog, Williams discusses how well the company is faring from when the website came to fruition and how he will remain with the company and be completely focused on “product strategy.”
Williams writes, “When I insisted on bringing Dick into the COO role a year ago, I got a lot of questions from my board. But I knew Dick would be a strong complement to me, and this has proven to be the case. During his year at Twitter, he has been a critical leader in devising and executing our revenue efforts, while simultaneously and effectively making the trains run on time in the office.”
Williams was also co-founder of Pyra Labs, the creators of Blogger, in 1999 and ran the company until its acquisition by Google in 2003. Williams took over the CEO position at Twitter in 2008 and helped to grow the company into a 165 million user social media platform with 300 employees and a billion dollar valuation.
Costolo’s expertise resides in helping companies create revenue and spent seven years as a consultant for Accenture. He was also the CEO of FeedBurner, before it was acquired by Google in 2007.
Recently, Twitter has focused on generating revenue and turning the website into a viable business, all while expanding its reach of service globally as much as possible. Coincidentally, Twitter launched Promoted Accounts services in order to gain revenue from businesses and individuals looking to gain a larger following.
