Dick Costolo Is Still Bullish on Twitter, Even if Wall Street Isn't
Dick Costolo may no longer be the CEO of Twitter (TWTR) - Get Report , but he's still a big believer in the company's future, especially under CEO Jack Dorsey.
"Jack speaks with the fluency and the moral authority of the inventor of the product," Costolo said in an interview with CNBC's Scott Wapner. Costolo, who left Twitter earlier this year, said the company responds to Dorsey because he realizes what it needs to focus on. "It's the core product. He's inspirational and a great editor of product. He's fantastic at listening to ideas that come from anywhere and I think he'll be successful."
Much of Twitter's issues according to investors is that the company hasn't been able to grow its monthly active user base to the scale of Facebook (FB) - Get Report . But Costolo defended Twitter, saying its reach and scale is enormous.
"When we talk about influence and reach they'll all be very different," he said, referring to the different social media platforms. "The resilience and strength of the network is incredible -- you can't wake up or go throughout the day without seeing Twitter content. It's incumbent on the company and the team to extract the value from that."
Twitter ended the third quarter with 320 million monthly active users, compared to 1.55 billion for Facebook. Shares of Twitter have plunged in 2015, down nearly 30%, compared to a 35% gain for Facebook.
In June, Costolo announced he was stepping down from the top spot at the San Francisco-based company, with co-founder Dorsey ultimately taking his place.
Twitter has been trying to expand its product to appeal to a wider audience than just the so-called power users, including the recently launched Moments, which is supposed to make using the service and platform easier for the average user.
During the interview, Costolo, who still owns a significant stake in the company, wouldn't speculate on whether the company would be independent twelve months from now, despite seemingly endless rumors that Alphabet's (GOOG) - Get Report (GOOGL) - Get Report Google would buy the company. Indeed, Google and Twitter have partnered in the past, with Google indexing tweets and Twitter making use of Google's DoubleClick ad platform.