In a new feature on Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Vanity Fair's Nick Bilton reports:
Every single product chief at Twitter - seven or eight people, depending on how you count - has been fired or forced to resign over the past decade. One former staffer told me the position is akin to the jinxed Defense Against the Dark Arts professorship in the Harry Potter saga, where every professor ends up dead or ousted at the end of the school year.
Twitter's most recent product departure was Kevin Weil, who was senior vice president of product from October 2014 to February 2016. Weil has since joined Instagram as its head of product. Weil had replaced Daniel Graf, who was hired away from Google in April 2014 and lasted only six months until he was essentially demoted in October 2014. Graf has since joined Uber as head of marketplace dynamics. Prior to Graf, Michael Sippey held a two-year tenure in the position, shifting to an advisory role at the company in January 2014.
This high turnover appears to be part of a larger - and tumultuous - picture at Twitter. The company has faced stagnant user growth over the past several years, and Jack Dorsey, who took over again as CEO less than a year ago, tied Twitter's troubles to "an ever shifting leadership, platform, and strategy," according to Vanity Fair.
The full Dorsey profile is worth the read - Twitter is likened to "Game of Thrones" and called "Shakespearean" at one point - and details the changeover from former CEO Dick Costolo's tenure to Dorsey's third appointment to the helm.
Read the full profile over at Vanity Fair.