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马斯克收购推特不成,创始人多尔西声誉受损

马斯克收购推特不成,创始人多尔西声誉受损

Kylie Robison 2022-09-11
最近见诸报端的事件令杰克·多尔西的名声受到打击。

推特公司联合创始人杰克·多尔西。图片来源:PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY FORTUNE; ORIGINAL PHOTOS BY GETTY IMAGES (2)

凭借银鼻环、大胡子和古怪的生活方式,过去十年杰克·多尔西跻身硅谷最知名人物之列,在一众工程师和初创公司创始人中,被尊称为互联网梦想家和科技各领域大师。

但每位大师都需要忠实的追随者,推特(Twitter)上传来一连串坏消息后,多尔西在科技界的至高地位突然动摇。推特由多尔西与他人联合创立,而且2021年11月之前一直担任公司的首席执行官。

最近一份举报称,多尔西作为领导者管理不当,导致公司“群龙无首”,受到严重安全漏洞困扰。埃隆·马斯克不仅退出了440亿美元收购推特的交易,还公开抨击该公司及其员工,给多尔西身后的公司蒙上了耻辱的阴影,而多尔西保持沉默也让很多观察家困惑。

最近多尔西本人在推特上表示,他“最大的遗憾”是推特已经变成公司。

硅谷很多人对多尔西的看法都在改变。

《财富》杂志与专业人士匿名社交网络Blind对3,300多名科技员工进行了一项独家调查,其中超过半数受访者认为举报者指控影响了多尔西的声誉,41%的人表示公司跟马斯克不断拉扯的交易让多尔西看起来很糟糕。

约200名推特员工参与了调研,其中58%的人表示“再也不会”或“很可能不会”再为多尔西工作。

Blind由匿名专业人士组成,必须使用经过验证的公司邮件才可以注册,不一定能够代表公司内部意见,也不能代表科技行业的总体意见。Blind活跃用户可能存在不满情绪。

多尔西仍然是金融科技公司Block的首席执行官,该公司由他创建,如今市值410亿美元,多年以来他同步经营推特与Block。对几位Block员工的采访显示,他们对多尔西的看法要正面得多。

“我认为杰克在科技公司首席执行官当中很罕见。他真心想让世界变得更美好。我为他工作了多年,他很真诚。”一位Block的员工告诉《财富》杂志。

然而,Blind调查结果还是向这位科技行业翘楚提出了尖锐的批评。在科技行业里,投资资金和最珍贵的工程人才往往流向个人品牌最佳的领导者。

韦德布什证券公司(Wedbush Securities)的软件分析师丹·艾夫斯表示,举报者的指控给了多尔西和推特“一记重拳”。“多尔西在硅谷留下诸多美名,但推特当前的情况给他的个人品牌留下了污点。”

多尔西的发言人并未回应置评请求。

领导两家公司的沉默首席执行官

推特的困境其实在多尔西执掌之前就已经出现。2015年多尔西被任命为推特的首席执行官时,公司用户增长乏力,产品也缺乏创新,人们希望这位38岁的联合创始人可以为公司带来新希望。

在2012年的一场科技论坛上,年轻的杰克·多尔西发言。图片来源:LEA SUZUKI—THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/GETTY IMAGES

2006年,多尔西协助创立了推特,2008年之前曾经短暂担任第一任首席执行官,他重新接管公司时其实也存在争议。第一次从首席执行官离任时他是被解雇的,因此当2015年推特董事会宣布他将重返首席执行官一职时,事情出现了意想不到的转折:多尔西将继续担任Square(如今名为Block,这家金融科技公司由多尔西联合创立)的首席执行官,而且要将精力分配在推特和Square两家公司上。

双重首席执行官角色显然与当年的苹果公司(Apple)的创始人史蒂夫·乔布斯相似,乔布斯曾经在被罢免后重返苹果,同时担任苹果和动画电影工作室皮克斯(Pixar)的首席执行官。和乔布斯一样,多尔西也喜欢披头士乐队(The Beatles)。他甚至招募了苹果公司的早期员工去Square工作。

多尔西在科技界的地位迅速上升。他发表了不少关于自己精神生活方式的推文,包括间断禁食和每天静坐17小时,获得公众追捧。

然而在推特内部,这位超级巨星首席执行官似乎不太受欢迎。《财富》杂志针对多尔西领导风格进行的Blind调查中有一道开放式问题,回答问题的推特员工最常用的词是“缺席”。负面用词(“冷漠”、“软弱”)出现的频率是正面用词(“激励”、“关心”)的三倍。

2021年11月,多尔西将推特的首席执行官一职交给了帕拉格·阿格拉瓦尔,今年5月底他辞去董事会职位,因此收集到的回答不一定能够反映与多尔西直接合作的员工观点。但多年来,多尔西领导下的公司内部裂痕越来越明显。

2020年出现了最戏剧性的事件之一,佛罗里达州的一位少年黑客成功劫持了一些推特最受欢迎的认证用户账户,其中就有贝拉克·奥巴马、杰夫·贝佐斯和坎耶·韦斯特等人的账户。

在安全领域惨败后,多尔西亲自聘请了著名网络安全专家彼得·扎特科修复问题。但一年后扎特科被推特解雇,2021年他在一场举报诉讼中声称,多尔西“极度不负责”,并且“严重忽略重点”。

扎特科向三个联邦机构提交的投诉称,推特的数据安全控制存在“严重缺陷、疏忽和故意视而不见”。此外他在投诉中表示,推特的50万台服务器中有50%加密处理不足,推特的筛选工作做得也不够,导致聘请了几家外国政府的代理商。

“多尔西的缺席行为很不正常,根本集中精力解决推特面临的问题。”扎特科写道。

马斯克声称,推特平台上的人工机器人的普遍程度远超其承认的水平,所以退出了收购交易,此事也体现了推特对技术的忽视。

推特首席执行官帕拉格·阿格拉瓦尔。图片来源:KEVIN DIETSCH—GETTY IMAGES

虽然不少法律专家认为马斯克在法庭上胜诉可能性很小,但他公开嘲笑推特员工、讽刺公司职业道德和平台价值,实际上推动了诉讼。刚开始多尔西称赞马斯克是监督推特的“独特解决方案”,但在双方纠结的痛苦过程中他基本上保持沉默。

贾森·戈德曼是推特的前高管兼董事会成员,他公开质疑多尔西的忠诚,指责多尔西在与马斯克的交易中“背刺”董事会。

这种情绪似乎很普遍。在《财富》杂志联合Blind针对来自苹果、Lyft和亚马逊(Amazon)等公司约3,300名受访者的调查中,56%的人认为多尔西不反击马斯克让员工感到失望。更多的受访者表示未来不想跟多尔西合作,数量超过愿意合作的人。

目标Web5等等

未来几个月,随着推特要求马斯克完成收购的诉讼进入庭审阶段,以及扎特科的举报案推进,多尔西受到的关注肯定会更多。马斯克的律师已经在法庭上提出动议,要求多尔西提供推特处理机器人的文件。

与此同时,多尔西关注的重点似乎越来越转向比特币(Bitcoin)。“这辈子没有比这更重要的事情了。”去年夏天他在一场会议上谈到加密货币时表示。

2021年7月,多尔西成立了一家名叫TBD的子公司,希望提升“去中心化金融世界”的便利性。他对目前依赖风险资本融资的Web3模型提出了明确批评,甚至与风投公司安德森·霍洛维茨(Andreessen Horowitz ,又称a16z)公开争吵。虽然与流行趋势不符,他还是宣称TBD是“Web5”公司。

杰克·多尔西对当前痴迷的领域制定了大计划:比特币。图片来源:JOE RAEDLE—GETTY IMAGES

最近狗仔队拍到的多尔西在西班牙度假照片说明,这位纹身的科技高管仍然散发着神秘感,吸引人们注意。

多尔西明显具备一种少有的能力,他在重重摔倒后总能够掸掉身上的灰尘继续前进。毕竟,东山再起的传奇是硅谷最热爱的类型,像是古老的经典,最近WeWork的亚当·诺伊曼和Uber的特拉维斯·卡拉尼克也在演绎类似故事。

在Block公司参与《财富》杂志联合Blind调查的员工中,20%的人表示“绝对”愿意再次与多尔西合作。这可能正是多尔西最需要的。(财富中文网)

译者:夏林

凭借银鼻环、大胡子和古怪的生活方式,过去十年杰克·多尔西跻身硅谷最知名人物之列,在一众工程师和初创公司创始人中,被尊称为互联网梦想家和科技各领域大师。

但每位大师都需要忠实的追随者,推特(Twitter)上传来一连串坏消息后,多尔西在科技界的至高地位突然动摇。推特由多尔西与他人联合创立,而且2021年11月之前一直担任公司的首席执行官。

最近一份举报称,多尔西作为领导者管理不当,导致公司“群龙无首”,受到严重安全漏洞困扰。埃隆·马斯克不仅退出了440亿美元收购推特的交易,还公开抨击该公司及其员工,给多尔西身后的公司蒙上了耻辱的阴影,而多尔西保持沉默也让很多观察家困惑。

最近多尔西本人在推特上表示,他“最大的遗憾”是推特已经变成公司。

硅谷很多人对多尔西的看法都在改变。

《财富》杂志与专业人士匿名社交网络Blind对3,300多名科技员工进行了一项独家调查,其中超过半数受访者认为举报者指控影响了多尔西的声誉,41%的人表示公司跟马斯克不断拉扯的交易让多尔西看起来很糟糕。

约200名推特员工参与了调研,其中58%的人表示“再也不会”或“很可能不会”再为多尔西工作。

Blind由匿名专业人士组成,必须使用经过验证的公司邮件才可以注册,不一定能够代表公司内部意见,也不能代表科技行业的总体意见。Blind活跃用户可能存在不满情绪。

多尔西仍然是金融科技公司Block的首席执行官,该公司由他创建,如今市值410亿美元,多年以来他同步经营推特与Block。对几位Block员工的采访显示,他们对多尔西的看法要正面得多。

“我认为杰克在科技公司首席执行官当中很罕见。他真心想让世界变得更美好。我为他工作了多年,他很真诚。”一位Block的员工告诉《财富》杂志。

然而,Blind调查结果还是向这位科技行业翘楚提出了尖锐的批评。在科技行业里,投资资金和最珍贵的工程人才往往流向个人品牌最佳的领导者。

韦德布什证券公司(Wedbush Securities)的软件分析师丹·艾夫斯表示,举报者的指控给了多尔西和推特“一记重拳”。“多尔西在硅谷留下诸多美名,但推特当前的情况给他的个人品牌留下了污点。”

多尔西的发言人并未回应置评请求。

领导两家公司的沉默首席执行官

推特的困境其实在多尔西执掌之前就已经出现。2015年多尔西被任命为推特的首席执行官时,公司用户增长乏力,产品也缺乏创新,人们希望这位38岁的联合创始人可以为公司带来新希望。

2006年,多尔西协助创立了推特,2008年之前曾经短暂担任第一任首席执行官,他重新接管公司时其实也存在争议。第一次从首席执行官离任时他是被解雇的,因此当2015年推特董事会宣布他将重返首席执行官一职时,事情出现了意想不到的转折:多尔西将继续担任Square(如今名为Block,这家金融科技公司由多尔西联合创立)的首席执行官,而且要将精力分配在推特和Square两家公司上。

双重首席执行官角色显然与当年的苹果公司(Apple)的创始人史蒂夫·乔布斯相似,乔布斯曾经在被罢免后重返苹果,同时担任苹果和动画电影工作室皮克斯(Pixar)的首席执行官。和乔布斯一样,多尔西也喜欢披头士乐队(The Beatles)。他甚至招募了苹果公司的早期员工去Square工作。

多尔西在科技界的地位迅速上升。他发表了不少关于自己精神生活方式的推文,包括间断禁食和每天静坐17小时,获得公众追捧。

然而在推特内部,这位超级巨星首席执行官似乎不太受欢迎。《财富》杂志针对多尔西领导风格进行的Blind调查中有一道开放式问题,回答问题的推特员工最常用的词是“缺席”。负面用词(“冷漠”、“软弱”)出现的频率是正面用词(“激励”、“关心”)的三倍。

2021年11月,多尔西将推特的首席执行官一职交给了帕拉格·阿格拉瓦尔,今年5月底他辞去董事会职位,因此收集到的回答不一定能够反映与多尔西直接合作的员工观点。但多年来,多尔西领导下的公司内部裂痕越来越明显。

2020年出现了最戏剧性的事件之一,佛罗里达州的一位少年黑客成功劫持了一些推特最受欢迎的认证用户账户,其中就有贝拉克·奥巴马、杰夫·贝佐斯和坎耶·韦斯特等人的账户。

在安全领域惨败后,多尔西亲自聘请了著名网络安全专家彼得·扎特科修复问题。但一年后扎特科被推特解雇,2021年他在一场举报诉讼中声称,多尔西“极度不负责”,并且“严重忽略重点”。

扎特科向三个联邦机构提交的投诉称,推特的数据安全控制存在“严重缺陷、疏忽和故意视而不见”。此外他在投诉中表示,推特的50万台服务器中有50%加密处理不足,推特的筛选工作做得也不够,导致聘请了几家外国政府的代理商。

“多尔西的缺席行为很不正常,根本集中精力解决推特面临的问题。”扎特科写道。

马斯克声称,推特平台上的人工机器人的普遍程度远超其承认的水平,所以退出了收购交易,此事也体现了推特对技术的忽视。

虽然不少法律专家认为马斯克在法庭上胜诉可能性很小,但他公开嘲笑推特员工、讽刺公司职业道德和平台价值,实际上推动了诉讼。刚开始多尔西称赞马斯克是监督推特的“独特解决方案”,但在双方纠结的痛苦过程中他基本上保持沉默。

贾森·戈德曼是推特的前高管兼董事会成员,他公开质疑多尔西的忠诚,指责多尔西在与马斯克的交易中“背刺”董事会。

这种情绪似乎很普遍。在《财富》杂志联合Blind针对来自苹果、Lyft和亚马逊(Amazon)等公司约3,300名受访者的调查中,56%的人认为多尔西不反击马斯克让员工感到失望。更多的受访者表示未来不想跟多尔西合作,数量超过愿意合作的人。

目标Web5等等

未来几个月,随着推特要求马斯克完成收购的诉讼进入庭审阶段,以及扎特科的举报案推进,多尔西受到的关注肯定会更多。马斯克的律师已经在法庭上提出动议,要求多尔西提供推特处理机器人的文件。

与此同时,多尔西关注的重点似乎越来越转向比特币(Bitcoin)。“这辈子没有比这更重要的事情了。”去年夏天他在一场会议上谈到加密货币时表示。

2021年7月,多尔西成立了一家名叫TBD的子公司,希望提升“去中心化金融世界”的便利性。他对目前依赖风险资本融资的Web3模型提出了明确批评,甚至与风投公司安德森·霍洛维茨(Andreessen Horowitz ,又称a16z)公开争吵。虽然与流行趋势不符,他还是宣称TBD是“Web5”公司。

最近狗仔队拍到的多尔西在西班牙度假照片说明,这位纹身的科技高管仍然散发着神秘感,吸引人们注意。

多尔西明显具备一种少有的能力,他在重重摔倒后总能够掸掉身上的灰尘继续前进。毕竟,东山再起的传奇是硅谷最热爱的类型,像是古老的经典,最近WeWork的亚当·诺伊曼和Uber的特拉维斯·卡拉尼克也在演绎类似故事。

在Block公司参与《财富》杂志联合Blind调查的员工中,20%的人表示“绝对”愿意再次与多尔西合作。这可能正是多尔西最需要的。(财富中文网)

译者:夏林

With his silver nose ring, big beard and eccentric lifestyle, Jack Dorsey has ranked among Silicon Valley’s most high-profile celebrities for the past decade, revered among engineers and startup founders as an internet visionary and guru of all things tech.

But every guru needs a loyal following, and Dorsey’s eminence among techies is suddenly on shaky ground amid a cascade of bad news at Twitter, the company he cofounded and led as CEO until November 2021.

A recent whistleblower complaint portrayed Dorsey as a disengaged leader, whose neglect created a “rudderless” organization plagued with serious security vulnerabilities. Elon Musk’s efforts to back out of a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, along with his public trashing of the company and its employees, has cast a humiliating pall on Dorsey’s legacy and left many observers baffled by Dorsey’s lack of response.

Dorsey himself recently tweeted that his “biggest regret” was that Twitter had become a company.

Many in Silicon Valley are having second thoughts about Dorsey.

In an exclusive survey of more than 3,300 tech employees that Fortune conducted with Blind, an anonymous social network for professionals, more than half said they believed Dorsey’s reputation had suffered as a result of the whistleblower allegations and 41% said the protracted deal drama with Musk had made Dorsey look bad.

Of the roughly 200 Twitter employees who participated in the survey, 58% said they would “never” or “likely not” work for Dorsey again.

Blind, which is comprised of anonymous professionals who must use a verified corporate email to register for the service, is not necessarily representative of the overall opinion within a company, or of the broader tech industry. People who use and are active on Blind may be disgruntled.

Dorsey remains the CEO of Block, the $41 billion fintech firm he founded, and that he ran alongside Twitter for many years. Interviews with several Block employees showed a far more positive view of Dorsey.

“I think Jack is a rare breed amongst tech CEOs. He genuinely wants to make the world a better place. I’ve worked for him for many years and he’s authentic,” a Block employee told Fortune.

Still, the results of the Blind survey represent a striking rebuke of one of the most celebrated figures in the tech business, where investment dollars and highly prized engineering talent often flow towards individuals with the strongest personal brand.

The whistleblower allegations are “a black eye” for Dorsey and for Twitter, said Dan Ives, a software analyst at Wedbush Securities. “Dorsey has a strong legacy in the Valley but this Twitter situation has left a stain on his brand.”

Representatives for Dorsey did not respond to requests for comment.

A silent CEO at the helm of two companies

Twitter’s struggles date back to well before Dorsey’s reign. When Dorsey was tapped to be Twitter’s CEO in 2015, the hope was that the then 38-year-old cofounder could bring a spark to a business suffering from anemic user growth and lackluster product innovation.

Dorsey, who helped created Twitter in 2006 and served briefly as its first CEO until 2008, was a controversial choice even at the time of his restoration. He had been fired from the CEO job the first time, and when the Twitter board announced his return to the CEO suite 2015, the news came with an unorthodox twist: Dorsey would remain CEO at Square (the fintech company, now called Block, that he cofounded), and split his time between Twitter and Square.

The dual CEO role had an obvious parallel with Apple founder Steve Jobs, who famously returned to Apple after being ousted, and who worked as the CEO of Apple and animated film studio Pixar. Like Jobs, Dorsey quoted the Beatles. He even recruited early Apple employees to work at Square.

Dorsey’s status quickly rose within the tech world. And his tweets about his spiritual lifestyle, including intermittent fasting and retreats involving 17 hours of silent daily meditation, made him an object of public fascination.

Inside Twitter however, the superstar CEO appears to have enjoyed less goodwill. In an open-ended question in Fortune’s Blind survey about Dorsey’s leadership style, the most common word used among the Twitter employees who responded to the question was “absent.” Negative words (“aloof,” “weak”) were used three times more often than positive words (“inspiring”, “caring”).

Dorsey handed the Twitter CEO job to Parag Agrawal in November, and he stepped down from Twitter’s board of directors at the end of May, so the responses may not necessarily reflect the views of employees who worked directly with Dorsey. But cracks within Dorsey’s organization have become increasingly visible for years.

One of the most dramatic occurred in 2020, when a teenage hacker from Florida managed to hijack the accounts of some of Twitter’s most popular verified users, including Barack Obama, Jeff Bezos, and Kanye West.

Dorsey personally recruited Peter “Mudge” Zatko, a famous cybersecurity expert, to fix things after the security fiasco. But Zatko, who was fired from Twitter after a year, claims in a whistleblower lawsuit that Dorsey was “extremely disengaged” and was “experiencing a dramatic loss of focus” in 2021.

Zatko’s complaint filed with three federal agencies claims that Twitter’s data security controls suffer from “egregious deficiencies, negligence and willful ignorance.” What’s more, he stated in his complaint that 50% of Twitter’s 500,000 servers lack sufficient encryption, and that Twitter’s deficient screening had resulted in the company employing several agents of foreign government.

“Dorsey’s absent behavior was anomalous and unhelpful in summoning the herculean effort needed to fix Twitter’s problems,” Zatko wrote.

The notion of technological neglect at Twitter is also embedded in Musk’s efforts to back out of his deal to acquire the company by claiming that the prevalence of artificial bots on the platform is much greater than Twitter acknowledges.

While many legal experts believe Musk’s arguments have little chance of prevailing in court, the Tesla CEO has pressed his case by publicly ridiculing Twitter’s employees, their work ethic, and the value of Twitter’s platform. Dorsey, who initially praised Musk as the “singular solution” to oversee Twitter, has largely kept mum throughout the bitter ordeal.

One former Twitter executive and boardmember, Jason Goldman, has publicly questioned Dorsey’s loyalties, accusing the Twitter cofounder of “backstabbing” the board in his dealings with Musk.

The sentiment appears widespread. In Fortune’s Blind survey, 56% of the roughly 3,300 respondents working at companies including Apple, Lyft, and Amazon, said they felt that Dorsey had let Twitter employees down by not pushing back against Musk. A greater share of those respondents said they would not want to work with Dorsey in the future than those who said they would.

To Web5 and beyond

The months ahead are sure to bring more attention to Dorsey, as Twitter’s lawsuit to force Musk to complete his acquisition goes to trial, and as Zatko’s whistleblower case moves forward. Lawyers for Musk have filed a motion in court seeking documents from Dorsey about Twitter’s handling of bots.

Dorsey’s focus, meanwhile, appears to be increasingly on bitcoin. “I don’t think there is anything more important in my lifetime to work on,” he said about the cryptocurrency at a conference last summer.

Dorsey launched a subsidiary company in July 2021 within Block called TBD, aiming to make the “decentralized financial world accessible.” He was notably critical of current Web3 models that rely on venture capital funding and even got into a very public spat with VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). He dubbed TBD a “Web5” company in spite of the trend.

As recent paparazzi shots of Dorsey vacationing in Spain attest, the tattooed tech exec still has a mystique that garners attention.

And it’s clear that Dorsey has an unparalleled ability to fall hard, dust himself off and move on to the next. The comeback story is, after all, Silicon Valley’s favorite trope — an age-old classic, that has recently featured WeWork’s Adam Neumann and Uber’s Travis Kalanick.

Among the Block employees who participated in Fortune’s Blind survey, 20% said said they would “absolutely” work with Dorsey again. That may be all he needs.

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