Jack Dorsey – Biggest Twitter Regret Was Forming Company

Tom Jowitt,
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Jack Dorsey. Image credit: Block

Co-founder and former CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey says his biggest regret was making the social media platform an actual company

One of Twitter’s founders has expressed his regret that the micro blogging platform became a corporate entity.

Co-founder and CEO for two separate periods, Jack Dorsey, has for years been the public face and principle defender of the social media giant.

But now in a reply on Twitter, Dorsey tweeted that his “biggest issue and biggest regret is that it (Twitter) became a company.

Williams and Dorsey

Biggest regret

Dorsey was tweeting in response to a question about whether Twitter turned out the way he had envisioned.

When asked by another user about what structure he wished Twitter would operate under, Dorsey said that it should be “a protocol” and that Twitter should not be owned by a state or another company.

Another user then commented that they were not sure the engineering exists to make something like Twitter’s scale work properly as an open protocol.

But Dorsey stood his ground, pointing to examples such as http, smtp, html, and bitcoin.

Musk support

Jack Dorsey had publicly supported Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover attempt of Twitter in April and has also previously criticised the firm’s board of directors, despite vocal concerns from staff and users about Musk’s acquisition.

If Elon Musk was to acquire Twitter, Dorsey stood to receive $978 million.

Elon Musk and his legal team have already subpoenaed Jack Dorsey, in an effort to gather a wide range of information from the co-founder, who stepped down from the CEO role in November, but remained on the Twitter board until late May.

Dorsey has reasons not to be overly friendly to Twitter’s board of directors after clashing with it over the years.

And previously some Twitter shareholders actively sought Dorsey’s removal during his second tenure as CEO.

Twitter whistleblower

Twitter meanwhile continues to deal with the fallout from the explosive claims made against it by whistleblower and former head of security Peiter Zatko.

Zatko made a series of stunning allegation last week, including that security flaws at Twitter are so bad they are a threat to people’s personal data, and even democracy and American national security.

He alleged that nearly half of Twitter’s employees have access to some of the platform’s main critical controls. Zatko said this was like being on an aeroplane, where nearly every passenger and flight attendant has access to the cockpit and flight controls.

Zatko also alleged some of the company’s senior-most executives have been trying to cover up Twitter’s serious vulnerabilities, and he claims that one or more current employees may be working for a foreign intelligence service.