Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey stepped down as CEO of Twitter, but he will leave a lasting impression on the ad world where he was treated as a visionary tech innovator, even if he often seemed aloof to the concerns of everyday brands, according to people familiar with his leadership style.

On Monday, Dorsey resigned from Twitter after serving as CEO since 2015. Dorsey helped create Twitter in 2006. Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s chief technology officer, was immediately named as Dorsey’s successor. Dorsey has been a looming presence in the advertising world, but his attention was divided, splitting his time between Twitter and his payments company Square. Now, advertisers, which are Twitter’s main source of revenue, have to consider what’s next for the company under new leadership.

Lou Paskalis, who is the president and chief operating officer at the Mobile Marketing Association, has been a big proponent of Twitter since he was a top media planner at Bank of America. Paskalis said that Dorsey has been engaged with the ad community for years, and he often attended Twitter’s Influence Council sessions convened during yearly industry events like Cannes, CES and NewFronts. Dorsey would talk with chief marketing officers and agency leaders about the future of the internet and the role of social media in the world.

Paskalis recalled one Influence Council dinner in New York City after Dorsey returned as CEO to Twitter. Dorsey was speaking in an informal interview with General Electric Chief Marketing Officer Linda Boff. “He offered a vision that was so profoundly deep that I realized I completely underestimated who Jack was,” Paskalis said.

Paskalis said that Dorsey seemed to grasp the importance of Twitter as a “town square” and the responsibility that placed on the company, and brands, to make it a safer place. Dorsey was trying to lead Twitter to a new beginning after the platform had earned a reputation as a place of widespread harassment and abuse. The perception was one of the biggest problems holding back user growth and advertiser demand.

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Paskalis and others credit Dorsey with listening to advertisers and taking steps to implement brand safety controls and community standards. “He’s stabilized the platform,” Paskalis said.

In 2016, Dorsey’s first full year as CEO, Twitter generated $2.5 billion in revenue, mostly from advertising. This year, Twitter is expected to top $5 billion in revenue, according to its quarterly financial reports and forecasts. In comparison to Facebook, Google and Amazon, Twitter is very much still a niche social media platform, competing with Pinterest and Snapchat for brand dollars. Facebook, now named Meta, generated almost $85 billion in ad revenue last year. Twitter has been held back in part because of its “town square,” which is a compelling place to consume news and shared interests, but it also can present risks for brands.

However, Twitter and Dorsey have received credit for taking hard positions in politically turbulent waters. Twitter was the first platform to ban former President Donald Trump’s account. That was a risky decision given Trump’s popularity with a large core of Twitter users, and a potentially damaging one for Twitter’s engagement rates. In 2019, Twitter also banned political ads, even when some of its peers were reluctant to go that far.

It’s unclear though how involved Dorsey was in making the hardest decisions for the platform. Twitter’s team, which included the new CEO Agrawal, were making some of those calls behind the scenes. A former Twitter employee, who was close to Dorsey, said that sometimes he was not active in the most political decisions. As the “visionary “ leader of Twitter, Dorsey was often running his other company Square, away on meditation retreats, and philosophizing about the next-generation of crypto-technology, this person said. “There were moments when Jack was out of pocket,” the Twitter alum said. He also didn’t “give a shit about advertising,” this person said, and Dorsey had to be prodded to take part in some of the more official duties as CEO of a multibillion-dollar ad company.

In his note to Twitter employees, Dorsey said that Agrawal has been a powerful voice within the company. Agrawal was “behind every critical decision that helped turn this company around,” Dorsey wrote.

Dorsey will still remain on the board of directors at Twitter, and Bret Taylor, Salesforce’s chief operating officer, has been named as chairman of Twitter’s board.

A Twitter spokesperson was not immediately available to comment on the situation. 

Brian Wieser, global president of business intelligence at WPP’s GroupM, said that even if Dorsey was not as involved in the day-to-day at Twitter, his mystique will be missed. Dorsey was a highly regarded figure inside the walls at Twitter.

“He wasn’t the face and voice of the business to the advertising community, but it matters internally,” Wieser said.

Wieser said that Twitter may be smaller than rivals like Facebook, but brands that have figured out the platform, stick with it. “Those who stayed and figured out how to get it to work, tend to really like it,” Wieser said.

Twitter is a force in media, often at the bleeding edge of daily cultural conversations in news, sports and entertainment. Brands have learned to ride those trends and use the service to inject their personality into the broader discussions happening online. Brands often use Twitter to launch new products and talk with customers.

Dorsey said that one of the reasons he was leaving was because he wanted to make way for new leadership so Twitter would not be beholden to one central figure. “There aren’t many founders that choose their company over their own ego,” Dorsey wrote in his departure letter. The self-flattering reference appeared to be a dig at Meta, still firmly under the leadership of its founder CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Dorsey’s inspiration can be seen in some of the moves Twitter has made in recent months, including its interest in crypto currencies and non-fungible tokens, which are digital assets valued in cryptocurrencies. Twitter has set a goal of incorporating NFTs into the service, and started accepting Bitcoin as a form of currency with which to “tip” creators.

Twitter also has been experimenting with web 3.0-level products, like Spaces, which is a place to livestream audio, a feature popularized by Clubhouse.

Dorsey also encouraged Twitter’s subscription model called Twitter Blue, which rolled out this month and is a clear refutation of advertising as the sole source of potential revenue for internet companies. For $2.99 a month, paying users get access to premium Twitter services, like ad-free articles from hundreds of publishing partners. Twitter also is trying to promote its creator community and provide ways for superfans to support their favorite voices on the platform.

The creator community also intersect with brands because Twitter has an in-house influencer agency called ArtHouse, which pairs its top users with advertisers for ad campaigns. Twitter was “very early to the creator economy,” Paskalis said.