Shareholders thrilled Twitter CEO resigned

Feathers are flying at Twitter, and the CEO finally has flown the coop.

Dick Costolo, who critics say has failed to sufficiently grow the microblogging site’s user base, will resign July 1 after five years at the helm — and hand the reins, at least temporarily, to Chairman and co-founder Jack Dorsey.

Costolo was also slammed for not finding and executing a plan to generate more revenue.

The surprise announcement late Thursday came just a week after the distressed social network’s annual shareholder meeting, where Costolo confronted investors who recently were slammed by lame quarterly results that sent Twitter’s stock tumbling more than 25 percent.

“This transition is not the result of anything other than Dick deciding to move on as CEO,” 38-year-old Dorsey insisted in a hastily organized conference call with analysts, adding, “There is no connection with our near-term results.”

Twitter investors cheered as Costolo prepared to head to the exits — pushing the company’s shares up as much as 7 percent in after-hours trading.

Board members Peter Currie, Peter Fenton and co-founder Evan Williams will search for a permanent CEO.

“We’re looking for someone who uses and loves the product in every single way,” Dorsey told the analysts on the call.

Dorsey also signaled that his “main priority is to facilitate a smooth transition” for a permanent CEO, and he admitted that he will be splitting his time between Twitter and Square, the mobile-payments company that he also heads.

One rumored candidate is Twitter President Adam Bain, who is said to be popular with the advertisers.

Financial chief Anthony Noto, who has taken on broad responsibility of late, has been blasted for his lavish pay package.

Costolo, for his part, insisted that his exit was part of an orderly plan he devised himself, having floated it with some of Twitter’s board members late last year.

“I personally felt like the scrutiny of the company would intensify if I remained CEO of the company while the search was ongoing,” Costolo said.

Indeed, Costolo led an awkward slide presentation at last week’s annual meeting just hours after billionaire Chris Sacca, one of Twitter’s biggest shareholders, published an 8,500-word critique that concluded that Twitter is too intimidating for many people to use.

The result, Sacca said, is that nearly 1 billion people have signed up for Twitter only to abandon it. That dwarfs the company’s 300 million monthly active users.

Sacca’s critique was spot-on, according to Dave Vronay, CEO of Heard, an LA-based social-networking platform.

“If my ability to be heard is entirely dependent on my ability to generate followers, then I’m not really being measured on what I have to say,” Vronay said. “I’m being measured on how good I am at working Twitter.”