????科斯特洛在Twitter任職期間得到的教訓非常明顯：不要輕易上市，除非公司已經具備足夠的盈利能力，且實現了瘋狂增長。比如，后面這種情況適用于Facebook，他們已經取得了成功，其股價每年上漲31%，失敗的IPO早已成為遙遠的回憶。但是，Etsy等其他一些上市公司經過一番磨難后，卻得到了反面教訓。去年12月份，Twitter聯合創始人埃文·威廉姆斯曾批評華爾街的短視主義。他對《財富》雜志表示：“華爾街根本不明白，到底是什么在為這個世界創造價值。”

????華爾街對Twitter存有諸多不滿：公司不盈利；諸如每月活躍用戶數量這類關鍵指標均無增長；Twitter沒有達到Snapchat或Instagram那樣的主流化程度。產品容易造成混淆。廣告也沒有足夠吸引力。就連一位聲稱為Twitter“費盡心血”的早期投資者，也發表了一篇頗具學術價值的文章，措辭強硬地要求公司做出改進。投資者開始感覺到，Twitter注定是一家永遠無法發揮潛力的公司。

????相比私有公司，如今的Twitter會受到更嚴格的審視。而在公眾看來，科斯特洛為平息投資者的不滿而做出的嘗試還遠遠不夠。比如，Twitter一直沒能對其主要產品做出有意義的改進。正如我的同事馬修所指出的那樣：

????“Twitter有不少于5位產品總監，但沒有一個人能夠提出一個明晰一致的愿景，也無法得到董事會和CEO的支持，因為高層更關心如何保護股價和風險投資者的利益。”

????科斯特洛為保護股價所做的努力也不成功。Twitter上市之后的收益每年翻一番，這可以說是了不起的成績。但這些收入并沒有帶來投資者要求的利潤。

????更糟糕的是，Twitter已經失去了吸引新用戶的魔力——在艱苦的創業初期，Twitter之所以能夠一路前進，靠的便是對用戶的吸引力。科斯特洛甚至試圖改變對用戶增長的表述方式和考量，他強調在互聯網上中看到推文的人數（5億人），而不是實際使用Twitter的用戶數（不足3億人）。該公司甚至還計劃從這些“未登錄”用戶身上產生收益。

????但對于這種策略，投資者并不買賬。外界并不確定它是否得到了CEO的支持。科斯特洛在上周的媒體電話會議上表示，在辭職之前，他曾在去年11月份和今年2月份兩次提出過辭職。他的第三次請辭終于獲得了董事會批準。

????在整頓公司和帶領公司上市方面，或許沒有人能比他做得更好。但在取悅投資者方面，或許沒有人會比他結果更糟。唯一可以確定的是，投資者早已不再信任科斯特洛。而一旦失去信任，他做任何事情都不再重要。在一家備受關注且估值如此之高的上市公司，CEO幾乎不可能有第二次機會來重新贏得投資者的信任。投資者是善變的，所以，一旦你成為投資者攻擊的目標，便不可能有翻身的機會。一個明證是，科斯特洛宣布辭職的消息傳出后，Twitter股票在盤后交易中上漲了4%。（財富中文網）

????譯者：劉進龍/汪皓

????審校：任文科

????The lesson of Dick Costolo’s Twitter tenure is clear: Do not go public unless you are wildly profitable and growing like gangbusters. That strategy has worked out well for Facebook, its stock rising 31% each year and its a bungled IPO a distant memory. Others, like Etsy, On Deck Capital, and Castlight Health are all learning this lesson the hard way. In December, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams scolded Wall Street short-termism. “Wall Street does not have a sophisticated understanding of what creates value in this world,” he told Fortune.

????Wall Street’s complaints for Twitter are myriad. It isn’t profitable. Its key metrics, including monthly active users, aren’t growing. It isn’t mainstream enough, like Snapchat or Instagram. The product is confusing. The ads aren’t that compelling. Even Chris Sacca, an early Twitter investor who says he “bleeds” Twitter’s signature aquamarine, has acollege essay’s worth of strongly worded suggestions for improvement. It’s beginning to feel like Twitter is doomed to live forever as company that can’t fulfill its potential.

????Costolo’s attempts to address the complaints in the public’s eye—subject to more intense scrutiny than Twitter had as a private company—have fallen short. With regard to its primary product, for example, Twitter has struggled to create meaningful improvements. As my colleague Mathew Ingram pointed out on Thursday:

????“There have been no less than five heads of product at Twitter, and none were able to put together a consistent vision and get buy-in from a board and a CEO who were more concerned about protecting the stock price and their venture backers.

????Costolo failed at doing the things that protect a stock price, too. Twitter doubled its revenues every year it was a public company, which is an impressive feat. But it never turned a profit, which is what investors demanded.

????Worse, Twitter lost its magic ability to lure in new users—the very thing that propelled it through its rocky early years. Costolo even tried to shift the narrative on user growth, pointing to the number of people who see Tweets embedded around the Web (500 million) instead of how many people actually use Twitter (just under 300 million). The company announced plans to begin monetizing those “logged-out” users.

????Investors didn’t buy the strategy. It’s not clear even Costolo bought it. Before his resignation this week, Costolo offered to resign last November, and again in February, he said on a media call Thursday. The third time, the board agreed.

????It’s possible no one could have done a better job at cleaning up Twitter and taking it public than Dick Costolo. It’s also possible anyone could do a better job of making investors happy than him. The only clear thing is that investors decided long ago that they’d lost faith in Costolo. Once that happens, it wouldn’t have mattered what he did. For a public company as high profile and highly valued as Twitter, it’s nearly impossible for a CEO to win the faith back. Investors are fickle, so if there’s a target on your back, you’re as good as dead. Want proof? Twitter shares were up 4% in after-hours trading on the news of Costolo’s resignation.