The data gathered by the Financial Times analysis show that over the past year, above 450 employees has left Twitter as the tech giant became a public company.
It can be suggested by the analysis of LinkedIn profiles that approximately 12 percent of Twitter’s employees have departed in the past year, including executives from the current MoPub acquisition and senior staff in partnerships and corporate development.
This wave of departures started in mid-2014, when Twitter demoted its chief financial officer and lost its chief operating officer Ali Rowghani.
When asked to comment on the figure of departed employees, a Twitter spokesperson responded, “Twitter is a product that people use daily and only great teams can deal with such a product and the impact that Twitter has all over the world, helps us in attracting the best employees.”
The true number of employee departures is still underestimated because not every employee keeps the LinkedIn profile up to date or has a LinkedIn profile.
Twitter’s head of communications, Gabriel Stricker has also left the company. The vice president of media, Chloe Sladden, left the company in August; the director of product, April Underwood, left in February 2015, Vivian Schiller, who was the head of journalism and news partnerships at Twitter, left in October 2014.
Other noticeable losses include corporate development team members, including, Rishi Garg, the head of corporate development.
The high employee turnover shouldn’t come as much of a shock given the attention Twitter has been getting both from commentators critical of “brogrammer” culture and Twitter’s lack of diversity and analysts who are not satisfied with the company’s growth in revenue and users.
The challenge of retaining and attracting talent in Silicon Valley is always problematic as some of the largest tech companies have to select from a limited number of applicants in the area, however reputation of Twitter for chaotic transition won’t help the company.
According to the CEO and co-founder of RecruitFi, Brin McCagg, “We are on a talent war, and we have to promote the brand to get applicants interested”.
