The famous New York investor Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures told Business Insider that he has “a lot of confidence in Dick. He’s a great manager and leader.” That’s a significant statement because Costolo is under major pressure to either quit or perform as Twitter stock languishes at half what it was after the IPO last year. Activists and rabble-rousers like Jim Cramer are insisting that while Costolo is by all accounts a very nice man, he’s not suited to lead Twitter forward. Cramer actually says Twitter is trading at a deep discount he calls the “Dick Costolo discount.”
Fred Wilson’s opinion that Costolo is “great” may cause at least some investors to reconsider the Dick Costolo discount narrative at Twitter. Wilson is much admired and also holds a lot of Twitter stock personally. But if Wilson is right, that might mean more trouble ahead for Twitter than if he’s wrong. Because if it’s just a change of leadership that Twitter needs, that can be arranged. But if the company has deep endemic problems with sufficiently monetizing its platform, that’s more difficult to address.
