The news comes as no big surprise. Some investors have publicly supported Dorsey for the role he took on an interim basis after Dick Costolo stepped down in June. And he’s a popular choice both inside and outside the company. And yet, the board said in June that it would not name a CEO who could not make a “full-time commitment” to the job. Given that Dorsey also is the CEO of Square, you’d think that would have put him out of the running.
I think if he can really recruit 2 amazing management teams, and get the COO thing to work on the operational side ... it's pretty do-able for a CEO incredibly engaged on product strategy.
It's when you get sucked into owning a functional area that you get killed. You can't also be the head of sales for 2 companies, or the hands-on CMO, etc. etc.
But, even if you can be CEO and Visionary and Strategic Chief Product Officer of two ... one must almost be definition suffer at least on a relative basis. Pixar killed it, but Jobs didn't seem quite the figurehead there. He spent one day a week at Pixar (with a world-class management team under him). SpaceX seems to be killing it too, but it feels like Tesla takes more of Musk's "PR" quota time. And being CEO of a public co. is a lot more work than a private one, even one as successful as SpaceX.
You can own more than one strategic project. And if you are brilliant, with a brilliant team, you can do both.
But one of them has to get less of your attention.
That feels like Square
