Hacker News Reader

Comment by M_Grey | Hacker News Reader

Mr. Williams, Twitter’s largest individual shareholder with a 6% stake, cited personal reasons for the selling plan, which kicked off Monday. He said he plans to remain on the company’s board and then keep the “vast majority of my assets” tied up in Twitter shares.

“It actually pains me to be selling at this point, but this sale is all about personal context, not company context,” Mr. Williams wrote in a post on Medium, the blogging startup he now runs as chief executive.

Interesting, and 30% would seem to support the notion that it isn't a lack of faith in the company, right? It really does sound like he just needed to be liquid.

View on HN

What else would he say since he still owns a ton of stock even after the sale?

> What else would he say since he still owns a ton of stock even after the sale?

On the other hand, why else would someone sell 30% of their stock? It's not unusual for someone to announce a plan for complete divestment (usually over the course of several years, to avoid disrupting the market) - that's what Gates is doing with Microsoft, in fact.

If he's holding on to 70% of his stock, it's not like he thinks Twitter is doomed. And as such a large shareholder and board member, it's not like he's just pretending in bad faith to sell only 30% now, but secretly planning on announcing that he's selling the remainder in another year or two. That would be very illegal, and the SEC would come down on him hard.

How exactly would that work? He would just say in a year or two that he decided out of the blue to sell the remainder, and how are you going to prove otherwise?

How and why would that be illegal? He owns the stock. At a certain price it is worth keeping and as the price goes up he has the right to take some off of the table just list as the stock tanks he has the right to secure some of his wealth, especially since he has another company that seems to be his real focus.

I respect his personal reasons but the stock is public and he is in charge.

I couldn't care if he liquidates 99% of what he has -- what would put me to ease as a shareholder is what is that "personal" reason. Buy a house? New startup? Fight a cancer. Sure, I'm fine... but if that personal reason turns out to be no reason at all, then its a short sign!

> what would put me to ease as a shareholder is what is that "personal" reason

That's easy. A "personal reason" is one that's none of anyone's business ;)

> I couldn't care if he liquidates 99% of what he has -- what would put me to ease as a shareholder is what is that "personal" reason. Buy a house? New startup? Fight a cancer. Sure, I'm fine... but if that personal reason turns out to be no reason at all, then its a short sign!

Did you read the article? He very clearly says:

> 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.)

>and he is in charge

@ev runs Medium now, i don't think he's involved in the day-to-day of twitter at all anymore. He's certainly not in charge.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com