Twitter CEO Dick Costolo To Step Down On July 1

The man, who helped turn the message start-up Twitter into a global town square, Dick Castolo is stepping down amid criticism over the company’s disappointing financial performance and a recent stock slide.

According to AFP, he will be replaced on an interim basis from July 1 by co-founder Jack Dorsey.

Mr. Costolo, a wealthy former entrepreneur who has led Twitter for the last five years, had grown tired of second-guessing by Wall Street, with its focus on the social network’s sluggish user growth and its repeated failures to make its products more appealing. In January, he confided to friends at the Consumer Electronics Show in January that he did not need the aggravation anymore.

A statement by Twitter said Costolo would remain as a member of the Twitter board and that Dorsey would stay as CEO of Square, the financial technology group he founded, during the search for a new chief executive.

”The future belongs to Twitter thanks in large part to Dick Costolo’s dedication and vision”, the statement concluded.

Now Twitter, which has 302 million active users, faces deep questions about the future of its messaging service, which is built around 140-character snippets of text in a world that is increasingly about photos and video.