The new chief executive at social platform Twitter says she wants the company to transform into the “most-accurate, real-time information source” on the Internet.
The affirmation was made in an all-staff memo distributed by newly-minuted CEO Linda Yaccarino on her first day in the role at Twitter.
“We’re on the precipice of making history, and that’s not an empty promise — that’s our reality,” Yaccarino wrote. “When you start by wrapping your arms around this powerful vision, literally everything is possible. You have to genuinely believe — and work hard for that belief.”
Yaccarino’s note was filled with motivational buzzwords and phrases, but didn’t outline how she will turn the ship around at Twitter, which has been faced with one controversy after another since tech mogul Elon Musk bought a controlling stake of the company late last year.
Since Musk’s $44 billion takeover of Twitter, the social media platform has been beleaguered with bugs and glitches — no surprise, considering the website fired most of its engineers and technical support staff — and criticism from journalists over its handling of misinformation and their once-verified accounts (now, Twitter charges $8 a month for the blue verification badge, which is available to anyone with a credit card and a phone number).
Yaccarino joined Twitter from Comcast, where she served as the lead executive in charge of marketing and advertising. One of her final deals involved an agreement that will see Twitter distribute some of NBC’s Olympics coverage via its digital platform next year. Financial terms of that deal were not disclosed; the agreement was announced just a few days before Yaccarino was confirmed as Twitter’s new CEO.
Read Yaccarino’s first memo to Twitter’s staff below (the memo has been lightly edited because Yaccarino likes using bold font and several paragraph breaks, which can make reading a memo of this magnitude very difficult to read on this website)…:
Subject: Building Twitter 2.0 Together
Hello Twitter!
People keep asking me: “Why Twitter?” So, I’ll tell you.
From space exploration to electric vehicles, Elon knew these industries needed transformation, so he did it. More recently, it has become increasingly clear that the global town square needs transformation — to drive civilization forward through the unfiltered exchange of information and open dialogue about the things that matter most to us.
Have you ever been talking with someone particularly insightful and thought, You’re brilliant — everybody should get the chance to hear this. Or, I’m learning so much from you — can we do this again? Or maybe it’s as simple as, You should have the freedom to speak your mind. We all should.
Enter Twitter 2.0.
Twitter is on a mission to become the world’s most accurate real-time information source and a global town square for communication. We’re on the precipice of making history — and that’s not an empty promise. That’s OUR reality.
When you start by wrapping your arms around this powerful vision, literally everything is possible. You have to genuinely believe — and work hard for that belief. And, in this moment of complete reinvention, we have the opportunity to reach across aisles, create new partnerships, celebrate new voices, and build something together that can change the world. And from what I can tell so far, you’re built for this.
The success of Twitter 2.0 is all of our responsibility. We need to think big. We need to transform. We need to do it all together.
And we can do it all by starting from first principles — questioning our assumptions and building something new from the ground up. It’s rare to have the chance to put a new future into the hands of every person, partner, and creator on the planet. That’s exactly why I’m here — with all of YOU.
So, let’s dig our heels in (4 inches or flat!) and build Twitter 2.0 together.
Linda
