Jack Dorsey Logs On To His Dream Job – Bitcoin Missionary – TechCrunch

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Hello friends, and welcome to Week in Review!

Last week, we took a break from contextualizing for some consumer guides. This week we take a look at what’s going on in the mind of a certain Jack Dorsey.

You can get it in your inbox from the newsletter page and follow my @lucasmtny tweets.

(Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images)

the big thing

As Elon Musk made his way to crypto holiness, Jack Dorsey spread the blockchain gospel much more seriously than most.

As CEO of Twitter – which he was until Monday when he unexpectedly resigned – most of his most passionate official communications have not focused on the power of the Twitter platform or even about the profound opportunities for his other business – fintech giant Square. The former dual CEO has spent the last year spreading the bitcoin gospel and using his multi-billion dollar companies to share the same message by pushing crypto-embracing features more aggressively than his peers.

He didn’t mince his words. “#Bitcoin will unite a deeply divided country. (and ultimately: the world), ”he tweeted in August.

At a bitcoin-centric conference in Miami this year, he was even more generous with his praise: “For me, Bitcoin changes absolutely everything. What attracts me the most is the ethos, this is what it represents, these are the conditions that created it, which are so rare and so special and so precious. I don’t think there is anything more important in my life to work on and I don’t think there is anything more empowering for people all over the world.

His leadership fervor has led Twitter and Square to embrace bitcoin and blockchain-centric features that lie deep inside the platforms millions of people rely on. In July, Dorsey said that would be a “big part” of the company’s future. Square’s recent initiatives have included a hardware wallet to store bitcoin and the exploration of building a dedicated bitcoin mining system.

For platforms with a host of unresolved and often urgent issues, Dorsey’s seemingly one-sided public attention to bitcoin’s revolutionary power hasn’t always pleased viewers, who were already worried about whether its status as a dual CEOs meant he was less tuned in. to the needs of its individual businesses. Early last year, activist-investor hedge fund Elliott Management released a list of demands to Twitter – the main one of which was that Dorsey would step down – after quietly increasing a large stake in the company.

Dorsey’s announcement of his resignation as CEO of Twitter sent the company’s shares soaring on Monday. While some rejoiced that Twitter could reach its full potential under a full-time CEO, others speculated on what Dorsey was doing and if he could leave Twitter to create a “web3” business focused solely on technology based. on bitcoin and blockchain. It appears that rather than building a new business from scratch, Dorsey sought to rethink the existing stack of opportunities within his other business, Square. On Wednesday, he announced a radical rebranding, renaming the fintech company initially known for its small plastic credit card dongles, to Block, a not-so-subtle nod to the CEO / Founder’s growing craze. Dorsey for the blockchain.

Unlike the state-owned companies of yesteryear, which could raise the price of their shares by adding “Blockchain” to their company’s name, Square is not a penny stock – it’s already worth nearly $ 90 billion. At this point, it should be noted that Square has explicitly stated that there will be no large-scale reorganization accompanying the rebranding, although Square Crypto is getting its own brand – Spiral. That said, it’s hard not to read between the lines, given Dorsey’s bitcoin boosterism and recent Square initiatives, like hardware wallets and mining platforms, which could reposition the company as crypto. -first.

In many ways, Block’s hodgepodge of properties, including the music streaming app Tidal and the Cash app, seems like a potential full-stack Web3 empire, or it could just mean the opportunity to piss off. a large number of different stakeholders by randomly weaving crypto technologies. into products that do not need it.

Image credits: GIPHY

other things

Here are a few stories this week that I think you should take a closer look at:

UK antitrust watchdog orders Meta to sell GiphyFacebook, now Meta, found itself in a regulatory environment that could make it difficult for it to conduct M&A business as usual. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has ordered Meta to reverse its acquisition of gif giant Giphy and sell the startup. “The merger between Facebook and Giphy has already eliminated a potential challenger in the display advertising market. Without action, it will also allow Facebook to further increase its significant market power in social media, by controlling competitor access to Giphy GIFs, ”one of the group’s executives said in a statement.

Facebook may have changed its name to mask consumer distaste for their corporate brand, but its regulatory issues are not going anywhere.

Best Facebook Crypto Officer Leaves Company Facebook’s top cryptocurrency expert is leaving the company after years of preparing for an ambitious entry for the company into the crypto world. David Marcus, a long-time supporter of crypto, previously led the company’s Messenger app team. His departure marks another major exit for a longtime Facebook executive – in September Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer announced he was stepping down after 13 years at the company.

Despite being one of the most influential executives in the crypto space, Marcus couldn’t do too much on Facebook due to regulatory pressure. He indicated in his announcement that he would then turn to entrepreneurial activities.

Twitter revamps security policy Twitter’s new CEO found itself in hot water just a day after taking office as users protested against the company’s new security policies. The policies, designed as a way to prevent harassment and abuse, prohibit the sharing of images or videos of individuals without their consent. “When we are notified by represented persons, or an authorized representative, that they have not consented to the sharing of their private image or video, we will remove it,” Twitter said in its update. “This policy does not apply to media featuring public figures or individuals where the media and accompanying Tweet text is shared in the public interest or adds value to public discourse.”

It is a very broad rule which is sure to lead to further controversies. Twitter clearly received more reactions than expected; The larger question is whether this leads to unintended consequences in implementation.

Image credits: TechCrunch

added things

Some of my favorite reads from our newly renamed TechCrunch + subscription service this week:

Let’s talk about the SaaS sell-off, “… We’re not only seeing software stocks flirting with bear market territory in technical terms, but also a pretty noticeable drop in the value of even the fastest growing tech companies. This means that the public valuation multiples – key indicators for unicorns still in the private sector and young startups – are decreasing. Have valuations moved enough to slow down the current venture capital windfall? Probably not. But we could be closer to that tipping point than you think… ”

Steps to Surviving and Thriving While Fundraising ”… So how do you prepare for this important stage in growing your business, meet the challenges of fundraising and not let the process overwhelm the responsibility of continuing to manage? your business ? While not all fundraising is the same, founders can draw on the experiences of others who have taken this path to ensure that their fundraising efforts are effective and, most importantly, successful… ”

3 Ways to Hire Engineers That Go Under the LinkedIn Radar “… Companies can’t let the way they’ve hired in the past influence their approach today – it means missing not only the amount of developers, but also the lack of developers. quality and diversity of them. The remote revolution has not only widened the places we can recruit, it has widened the people we can fit in. With that in mind, these are the best ways to tap into the gems hidden from developers … “

Thanks for reading! Again, you can get it in your inbox from the newsletter page and follow my @lucasmtny tweets.

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