Why I’m selling some Twitter shares

A note for Twitter shareholders and employees

If you’re not a Twitter shareholder or employee (or reporter who covers such things), this is exceedingly uninteresting — check out the Medium homepage instead. If you are, I wanted to provide some context, in anticipation of potential speculation due to a public filing today.

The vast majority of my assets are in the form of Twitter stock, as has been the case since, well, since it was worth much. That will continue to be the case for the foreseeable future. I’m proud to be on the board and optimistic about the future of the company. I’m also really gratified by the recent efforts at Twitter to curb abuse, the reported upward tick in usage, and recent additions to senior staff, among other things.

After a year and a half of no selling, I have filed a new 10b5–1 plan to liquidate a minority of my TWTR over the next year. This plan kicked in on Monday. It actually pains me to be selling at this point, but this sale is all about personal context, not company context.

Here’s the short story: I like to invest a lot in things I care about. For example, I’m the largest LP at Obvious Ventures, which has invested in over 35 world-positive companies. In addition, my wife and I have done a fair amount of philanthropic giving and—especially in the last year—upped our political donations significantly 😬. These are all efforts to help build a smarter, more sustainable world. I’ve been doing all of them for a while, and I’d like to continue. (In the early days, I also funded Medium, but have not in recent years and don’t have any plans to, thanks to awesome investor/partners.)

I’m not a public market investor. And I feel very fortunate to be able to use funds to enable other people to do good things. Thank you for your understanding and thanks, especially, to the employees working to serve the important role Twitter plays in the world today.