Twitter's CEO is doing just fine -- at least that's the message from the company's board of directors.
One by one, Twitter's cofounders and board members have come out to publicly support Dick Costolo following a series of criticisms of his performance from pundits, investors and analysts, including one who recently predicted the CEO would likely step down in the next year.
Jack Dorsey, Twitter's cofounder and current CEO of Square, issued a lengthy tweetstorm on Thursday in which he praised the progress of the social network and offered a firm endorsement of Costolo's leadership. (His tweets were later promoted by Twitter, suggesting the company endorsed his endorsement.)
10/As for @dickc, our cofounder @ev rightly pointed out there isn't a single person who has been thinking longer about Twitter than @dickc.— Jack (@jack) January 29, 2015
11/@dickc was one of our first angel investors, our advisor, our COO, the creator of our revenue engine, and our CEO who assembled the team.— Jack (@jack) January 29, 2015
Ev Williams, another of Twitter's cofounders who, like Dorsey, sits on Twitter's board of directors, lent his support to Costolo in a tweet responding to a critical Wall Street Journal article. Twitter has suffered from sluggish user growth and a series of executive shuffles.
@SammyWalrusIV the people backing him in the story are those who know him best. random Wall Street dude who doesn't given lots more airtime— Ev Williams (@ev) November 7, 2014
Likewise, board member Peter Currie tweeted earlier this month that he was "very confident" in Costolo and his team, in response to comments from financial news personality Jim Cramer.
Thank goodness for News Year Resolutions! @jimcramer. Very confident in @dickc and the talented team he has. http://t.co/naJP3bDDFr— Peter Currie (@plscurrie) January 6, 2015
While Costolo has a long history at Twitter and is said to be well-liked by many employees, he nonetheless suffers from a problem that his counterparts at Facebook and Google don't have: he is neither a founder nor a majority shareholder in the company, and therefore more susceptible to the whims of investors. The endorsements of two Twitter founders may help, but nothing is guaranteed.
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