The ‘soul of Google’ Omid Kordestani is now Twitter’s executive chairman

Image: Forbes

As unsurprising as it may be, an early Twitter investor came out several months to say that Google still doesn’t understand social and should buy struggling Twitter. And while that hasn’t quite happened (and we don’t really have any hard evidence that it will), it appears that ties between the two companies are strengthening. Twitter’s once-again-CEO Jack Dorsey has today announced that Google’s previous chief business officer Omid Kordestani has been appointed as the social network’s executive chairman.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Dorsey announced the appointment on Twitter:

🐥⚡️ Today we're appointing @OmidKordestani to the Twitter Board of Directors to serve as our Executive Chairman!

— jack (@jack) October 14, 2015

This appointment, interestingly, comes not long after Omid Kordestani returned to Google in the summer of 2014. Mark Bergen of Re/code did an extensive profile on Kordestani that was published just a few months ago, chronicling his return to the Mountain View company. It’s not debated that Kordestani could very well be one of the most well-liked and respected execs in Silicon Valley, and it was just three months ago that he and Ruth Porat announced Google’s impressive 2nd quarter earnings.

One of Omid’s long-time employees during his time at Google characterized him as the company’s soul. “Omid is very much a dyed-in-the wool Google person,” Dave Girouard, the CEO of Upstart, told Re/code. “You felt like you were speaking to the soul of Google when you talked to Omid.” Another long-time Google veteran, Jeff Levick (who now works at Spotify), lamented the same. “He is the soul of Google coming back,” Levick said when Kordestani returned to Google last year.

And now, he’s fully at Twitter. Mr. Kordestani no longer has any affiliation with Google, according to sources for Reuters.

Omid took to Twitter (appropriately) to express his excitement. “Excited to work with @jack, the Twitter Board, @adambain, @anthonynoto and the rest of the team to grow @twitter’s impact and business,” he said. “It’s rare you get to be at a company with an amazing business that’s also transforming the world. I’ve had good fortune to be at three: Netscape, @google, and now @twitter.” He spread the news across three tweets, thanks to the 140 character limit that the social network still imposes.