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Twitter's chief technology officer quits, VP of product also leaving

This article is more than 12 months old

SAN FRANCISCO: Twitter's chief technology officer on Tuesday said he is leaving the company, his departure adding to a roster of exiting executives at the one-to-many messaging service.

Mr Adam Messinger had been with Twitter for five years, most recently heading engineering and products.

"I've decided to leave Twitter and take some time off," he said in a tweet.

Twitter vice-president of product Josh McFarland also put out word that day that he is leaving the company, with plans to join venture-capital firm Greylock Partners in Silicon Valley.

San Francisco-based Twitter has been striving to boost its ranks of users and revenue.

In an e-mail reply to AFP, Twitter said it is "taking steps to streamline and flatten the organisation by elevating our engineering, product and design functions". Each area will now report directly to co-founder and chief executive officer Jack Dorsey.

Twitter announced the departure of chief operating officer Adam Bain last month, just weeks after reporting job cuts and a disappointing fiscal quarter.

It reported a net loss for the third quarter of $103 million, compared with a $132 million loss a year earlier. Revenues grew 8 per cent year-over-year to $616 million, most of that from advertising.

I've decided to leave Twitter and take some time off. Twitter's chief technology officer Adam Messinger

The key metric of monthly active users rose only modestly to 317 million from 313 million in the prior quarter - a growth pace that has prompted concerns over Twitter's ability to keep up in the fast-moving world of social media.

The announced job cuts amounted to about 350 positions based on the Twitter website's headcount of 3,860 employees worldwide.

Twitter said the restructuring "is intended to create greater focus and efficiency to enable Twitter's goal of driving toward (net) profitability in 2017".

Analysts, however, remain sceptical about Twitter's outlook for expansion, expressing concerns about its ability to entice users beyond its core base. - AFP

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