Twitter’s Head of Media and Commerce Nathan Hubbard is leaving the company after three years of working with the social media giant.
Hubbard, who started at Twitter in 2013, was hired to enable in-tweet purchases at a time when networking platforms were rushing to embrace the new wave of social commerce. That effort, however, came to an end last week as Twitter disbanded its commerce team and put the kibosh on its buy button feature.
An end to Twitter’s social commerce ambitions came as numerous members of the 25-person commerce team left or were let go from the company, which led Twitter to reallocate its resources and focus on improving customer service and dynamic product ads.
“People are not buying on social media right now. They are still buying, for the most part, on mobile web,” a source close to Twitter’s commerce team told BuzzFeed News. “There’s still an active ‘Buy Now’ card at Twitter, but no one’s putting any work into it. There’s no new product development happening.”
Hubbard, however, is not the only executive leaving the company. According to Recode, Twitter’s Head of Business Development Jana Messerschmidt is also planning her departure from the company to focus on some of her other investment projects.
Hubbard will be replaced by Twitter’s current VP of Revenue Partnerships Ali Jafari, who runs the company’s Amplify video advertising platform, next month as he transitions out of the company.
In a tweetstorm, the former CEO of Ticketmaster announced that his decision to leave the company came down to giving more time to this family. Here’s a preview of his 21 tweets in which he explained his decision:
1) A tweetstorm on why I joined Twitter, why I love Twitter, and why I've decided to leave Twitter next month:
— Nathan Hubbard (@NathanCHubbard) May 26, 2016
2) When @dickc, @adambain, and @sacca started recruiting me to Twitter at the Super Bowl in 2013, I was CEO of Ticketmaster.
3) By any measure, we crushed it at Ticketmaster, and I am most proud of how our legacy has endured and grown as they’ve executed the plan.
4) @rapino99 believed in me and gave me the opportunity, and it paid off. And after 7+ years I just needed something else to go after.
5) Since I was a boy, I have been obsessed with the energy and electricity of a crowd. It is the common thread across all of my work + life.
6) Ticketmaster is the world’s largest passion monetization engine. Twitter felt like the digital manifestation of that energy of the crowd.
7) I always thought about joining Twitter as going back to school. I just wanted to learn from the heart of a company in its moment.
8) It meant leaving a big job. Yikes. Twitter was exceedingly patient as I extracted myself over the next 6 months.
9) But I jumped. No team, no title, didn’t care about org. Gave up my blue verification badge for a chance to get better and build. YOLO.
10) And it has given me more than I ever could have bargained for – an incredible apprenticeship I carry forward. Reusable gifts.
11) Twitter has taught me so much about so much: how a company adheres to core values, what working with the very best people is like…
12)…how to make a global impact, the depths of the digital advertising and media businesses, all things distributed mobile commerce…
13)…content and how it is consumed and monetized, the intricacies of a true platform strategy, developer relations…
14) …what/why/when/where/how people buy, and what a high performance product and eng team that ships constantly looks and feels like.
15) But after ~3 years of commuting to SF from LA, I need to be based at home with my children. Honestly, it’s been rough on my family.
16) And I’m ready to take all that I’ve learned, all the ways in which I got better, into leading what I need to do next. Stay tuned.
17) I will transition out next month, but @jafari is so good he won’t need my help. The team is in terrific hands.
18) There are no words to express the gratitude I feel to the human beings I got to connect with at Twitter, colleagues present and past.
19) Particular thanks to the great @adambain, @dickc, and @jack for letting me ride shotgun.
20) Thanks to the Commerce team for shipping pioneering product, and the Media team for empowering creators to impact the world every day.
21) When I wear a Twitter shirt w/the logo on my chest, I feel like a superhero. May you all feel so much love+pride for the place you work.
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