신임 트위터 회장 '트위터는 사용하기 어렵다'

Jack Dorsey’s Challenge: Simplify Twitter for Users Like Its Chairman

Twitter Chairman Omid Kordestani, then chief business officer at Google, arrives at the Allen and Co. conference in July.

andrew gombert/European Pressphoto Agency

Jack Dorsey’s biggest challenge returning as Twitter Inc.'sTWTR -0.51% chief executive is making the social media service he co-founded easier to use. One of the first people he is targeting: the new executive chairman.

“I did find [Twitter] challenging to use at times and intimidating to use,” said Omid Kordestani, in his first interview since being named to the board at Twitter last week.

The former Google executive said he had used Twitter to consume and search for bite-sized updates about game scores, earthquake alerts and events like the Iran nuclear negotiations. But overall, Mr. Kordestani had been a sporadic user of the 140-character messaging service since opening his account in 2010. He followed only a handful of accounts, and the announcement that he was joining Twitter’s board marked his ninth tweet.

“That’s exactly the problem that the company and Jack are trying to fix—that there are a lot of users who touch the service and perhaps don’t find it as simple as they should and don’t understand exactly how to express themselves. And that’s a huge opportunity,” he said. While Twitter has 316 million monthly active users, growing 2.6% in the three-month period ended June 30, there are countless more that have tried but abandoned the service.

Mr. Kordestani, 52 years old, said the company is now undergoing a “rebirth” under Mr. Dorsey, whose return as CEO in July was made permanent earlier this month. Mr. Kordestani repeatedly talked about Mr. Dorsey’s unwavering “focus,” a point that speaks as much to the absence of it under former CEO Dick Costolo as it does to his confidence that Mr. Dorsey can run two companies at once.

Part of Mr. Kordestani’s job will be to make sure Mr. Dorsey doesn’t lose focus on Twitter as he juggles his responsibilities as CEO of Square, the payments startup. His ability to run both companies simultaneously will be tested in the coming months as he attempts to lead Twitter through a crucial turnaround period while steeringSquare through an initial public offering.

On Monday, Mr. Kordestani sat in on Mr. Dorsey’s weekly hours-long meeting with his direct reports, something he plans to do “as much as possible.”

“Based on what I saw this morning I have no worries,” Mr. Kordestani said. “He’s very focused, he’s very organized, he was on time, the agenda was very crisp, there was a lot of detail, there were barely any breaks,” he said.

Mr. Dorsey, 38, has been quick to make his mark. Within two weeks, Mr. Dorsey released the company’s news curation feature, announced the expansion of its video advertising service, welcomed Mr. Kordestani to the board and, in a somber turn of events, trimmed Twitter’s headcount by 8%.

Mr. Kordestani said he has been interested in working at Twitter since 2009 when he left Google for a few years. Twitter’s recruiting firm recently reached out to him, and he said he became convinced after meeting Mr. Dorsey.

Mr. Kordestani plans to be more involved in the company’s operations than the typical chairman, which he says “can be a little ceremonial.”

In Mr. Kordestani, Twitter gets a seasoned executive who as Google’s 11th employee devised the search giant’s business model that drove its massive growth. Mr. Kordestani was Google’s business chief until the company reorganized into Alphabet Inc.GOOGL +1.39% in August. He stayed as an adviser but has since left the company.

Mr. Kordestani’s level of involvement remains unclear. For now, he is just listening. But he surmises that his input could be valuable in a wide range of areas.

In addition to helping figure out new revenue strategies, he could help “open up Twitter to more people across the world. There are many parts of the world that for various reasons, for example, governments may not allow access to the service to their people,” he said. Twitter is blocked in China while access to the service has been occasionally restricted in other countries including Turkey, Iran, Libya, Pakistan and Syria. Mr. Kordestani did not specify a particular country.