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Twitter Co-Founder Ev Williams Is Selling 30 Percent of His Stock For 'Personal' Reasons (recode.net)

Posted by BeauHD on from the sign-of-the-times dept.

The co-founder and current board member of Twitter, Ev Williams, said today that he plans to sell a "minority of [his] TWTR" stock over the next year, and doesn't plan to sell "more than 30 percent" of his holdings. Williams is the company's largest individual shareholder, so his recent announcement may make some investors worried. However, Twitter stock was only down less than 1 percent Thursday following this news. Recode reports: Williams was careful to say the sale was for "personal" reasons, not company performance reasons. Twitter's stock is down more than 15 percent over the past three months. Williams explained the sale in a blog post, and wrote that he has spent a lot of money investing through his venture fund, Obvious Ventures, and also donated a lot to charity and political campaigns over the past year. "I'd like to continue," he added. Williams sold about $4 million in stock this week, according to an SEC filing, and has set up a 10b5-1 trading plan, which means he'll sell at pre-determined dates moving forward to avoid any concerns over insider trading.

17 of 42 comments (clear)

  1. kinda sounds like a Godfather quote by turkeydance · · Score: 1

    but this time it is personal.

  2. heh by DMJC · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah I bet he "personally" doesn't think the company is going to last, and wants to sell out before the stock completely tanks. Gotta lock in those gains!

  3. diversify by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'd assume his Twitter holdings account for vast majority of his net worth and it is only prudent to diversify. Many executives sell shares in companies they work at for this exact reason. Even if the company is sound. Don't be like Enron employees who invested everything on company stocks and were left with nothing. No job and no savings.

    1. Re:diversify by radarskiy · · Score: 1

      Don't forget he was also a cofounder at Pyra, so he has all of that filthy Google lucre as well.

    2. Re:diversify by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      We you say you will sell thirty percent, you will sell thirty percent. When you say you 'PLAN' to sell thirty percent, you well sell just as much as you fucking can as fast as you fucking can, well, duh, you simply revised your plan. Using that word 'plan' is a red flag for much greater sales, say the plan is to bail on Twitter.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    3. Re:diversify by Puls4r · · Score: 1

      Yeahhh..... except you're missing the confluence of factors that center around this sale. Twitter is struggling. Their IPO was a failure. They have no compelling products. Their 'profitability' lies in the sale of data. Q1 2015, they basically stopped adding followers and have been flat lining ever since. With no more new users, you can't really just keep selling the same data and be profitable.

      Wallstreet knows it. That's why the IPO failed. Their execs know it. Users will continue to use the platform because it's the same twitter it has been, but there's no future there for profitability.

      Want to know how important data is? Microsoft took their operating system - arguably their biggest most influential product, and they gave it away for FREE so they could increase the amount of information they gather on you by a factor of 100.

      https://technet.microsoft.com/...

  4. Tech news headline: by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 4, Informative

    Rats Fleeing Sinking Ship, Film At Eleven

  5. Getting out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    While he can, before it all tanks.

    1. Re:Getting out by DickBreath · · Score: 1

      When he says for "personal reasons" that is a nice euphemism for "trump".

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
  6. Political Campaign Donations by pipingguy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Supported Clinton and now won't be getting "special deals"?

  7. Here's an out-of-the-box theory by radarskiy · · Score: 2

    Maybe he wants to buy some stuff?

  8. How much is that? by Lost+Race · · Score: 1

    How much are we talking about here? One million dollars? A billion? 10 billion?

    He currently owns about 45 million shares. 30% of that is about 14 million. At about $14/share, that's roughly $200 million.

    His 45 million shares amount to 7% of Twitter, so we're talking about 2% of the company changing hands.

  9. Re: Riiiight by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

    You have the wrong guy. That wasn't Trump posting.

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  10. Personally, I would too by kwelch007 · · Score: 1

    Personal Reasons = He wants his cash

  11. Personal as in "personal finance" by russotto · · Score: 1

    "I want to replace this turkey with something of lasting value before my net worth drops too much" is still a "personal reason"

  12. I would too by EndlessNameless · · Score: 1

    If I had overvalued stock, I would sell it for personal reasons too. Personal masseuse, personal chaffeur, etc.

    You don't have those things when reality catches up and your stock plummets loses over 90% of its value.

    It's time to fold and ante into a new game.

    --

    ---
    According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
  13. "personal" by Lehk228 · · Score: 1

    as in, he wants to protect his personal assets when the company that is a glorified SMS relay goes down in flames for trying to become SMS Relay + Social Justice

    --
    Snowden and Manning are heroes.