Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has continued to be berated for his leadership skills after Harvard Business School professor Bill George said the social exec is not “in the same class” as the heads of Google and Facebook.
George told CNBC that Costolo should step down from his role at Twitter and be replaced by another leader to reverse the “slow down” in the site’s user base growth.
“Costolo is not a product guy. He’s a consultant,” he said. “He doesn’t really understand product the way a Larry Page or a Mark Zuckerberg does, and so I think you need a new team at the top.
“The advertising is very hard to use and it’s not very apparent—they’re almost against advertising—and so I don’t think they have a sound business model,” George continued.
The Harvard professor also speculated that Twitter is a “perfect target” for an activist investor and could end up merging with another company.
George noted that Costolo continues to axe product developers and bring in new team members that are yet to “prove themselves”.
