Twitter seems to have trouble getting its three co-founders to stick around. In 2008, Jack Dorsey was replaced as CEO by fellow co-founder Evan Williams, and two years later, Williams also stepped down. Then, this past March, Dorsey returned as product chief. Now, third co-founder Biz Stone has announced that he too is leaving day-to-day work at the company.
“My work on Twitter has spanned more than half a decade, and I will continue to work with the company for many years to come,” said Stone in a post on his blog. “During this time—especially lately, it has come to my attention that the Twitter crew and its leadership team have grown incredibly productive. I've decided that the most effective use of my time is to get out of the way until I'm called upon to be of some specific use.”
While Stone will spend some of his time working on charity efforts and advisory boards, he said that his main focus will be relaunching The Obvious Corporation, the company where Twitter was first “incubated,” with original founders Williams and Jason Goldman. “Our plan is to develop new projects and work on solving big problems aligned along a simple mission statement: The Obvious Corporation develops systems that help people work together to improve the world,” said Stone, adding, “This is a dream come true!”
