Twitter’s chief technical officer announced his resignation Thursday, a day after disastrous attempts to launch Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign on the platform.
Foad Dabiri tweeted, “After nearly four incredible years on Twitter, yesterday I decided to quit the nest.”
“The combination of the amazing community, its impact and its limitless potential is what sets Twitter apart.”
He admitted that Musk’s purchase of Twitter in October made the job “challenging” and there was a lot of “outside noise,” but gave the situation a positive spin and said he learned tremendously from the experience.
He did not elaborate on the reasons for his departure.
His company was deeply embarrassed by Wednesday night’s debacle, as Twitter was unable to live-stream audio of DeSantis’ campaign launch and a heated microphone discussion ensued with Twitter owner Elon Musk and host David Sacks.
Musk and Sacks said the problems were due to “server congestion” and “servers melting” and claimed it was the largest event ever hosted online – but many pointed out that far larger events had been held smoothly.
As CNN reported, 500,000 people initially logged on to listen. When the event finally started, only half of that number was left.
Ron DeSantis’ campaign start on Wednesday was marred by technical issues on Twitter – a major embarrassment for Elon Musk (left) and for DeSantis (right) himself
Dabiri posted a long thread thanking his colleagues for their work and friendship.
“What an extraordinary journey it has been,” he wrote.
“To say it was challenging at first would be an understatement. The change was massive and rapid; We got through it and came out stronger thanks to the remarkable team that stood the ground.
“Working with @elonmusk has been extremely educational and enlightening to see how his principles and vision are shaping the future of this company.”
Dabiri studied for a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California Los Angeles and joined Google in 2011.
In 2014 he founded the health technology company Wanda and stepped down as CEO in April 2019. Three months later, he switched to Twitter.
He said working there has been a remarkable experience.
“Twitter is a place that defies imagination,” he wrote.
“It is unique, quirky, remarkable and resilient, all thanks to the brilliant and capable people who built it and continue to shape it.”
“It’s impossible to understand the inner workings of this platform and day-to-day operations unless you’ve been lucky enough to experience it firsthand.”
“Kudos to the team for continuing and staying strong despite all the outside noise.”
Musk has not yet commented on his departure.
The launch of DeSantis’ campaign, which Musk has described as revolutionary, was scheduled to take place at 6 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
But Twitter couldn’t handle the traffic and the servers kept crashing.
The event was initially delayed by several minutes, and when it began, the audio cut out frequently.
Host David Sacks said so many people tried to listen that it “melted the internet”.
At 6:30 p.m., the audio was gone and DeSantis still couldn’t get a word out. They started again about 10 minutes later, when Sacks congratulated DeSantis on “breaking the internet” and Musk said it was refreshing not having “canned speeches and teleprompters — it’s real.”
The internet erupted in mockery.
“Who here thinks it would have been better to launch #DeSantis in Disney streaming?” “#Fail,” one tweeted, referring to DeSantis’ uphill battle with the entertainment company.
A source told CNN that Twitter’s technology — its Spaces platform — wasn’t designed to accommodate hundreds of thousands of listeners.
Spaces was described as a “prototype” and “idiot” tool by a former Twitter employee who was familiar with its development.
“Spaces was mostly a prototype, not a finished product,” the former employee told CNN.
“It’s a beta test that never ended.”