Is Jack Dorsey CEO of the Year? My Answer May Surprise You
What a difference a year makes...
Last year was one Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) CEO Jack Dorsey would doubtless rather forget. The unpleasantness came to a head in October at the Money 20/20 conference, where Dorsey defended his decision to remain CEO of Square (NYSE: SQ) while taking on the same role at Twitter. Twitter had reportedly unsuccessfully shopped itself to Alphabet and Disney earlier that month, and its shares fell approximately 20% on news of the attempt's failure. Twitter followed that by announcing plans to cut its workforce by 8%. Overall in 2016, shares of the microblogging site fell 30% while the broader U.S. market rose 12%.
Meanwhile, Square in October 2016 was trading at roughly $11 per share, more than its $9 IPO price but lower than its price during the last private funding round. Square shares fared moderately better than Twitter's in the full 2016, rising 4%, but still nowhere close to the market average. Analysts blamed Dorsey for both companies' underperformance, alleging the unusual dual-CEO arrangement spread the young executive too thin to be effective. (Dorsey's turning 41 in the next week.)
Source: Fool.com