Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey was digging deep at the company's San Francisco headquarters last week. At an emergency morale-boosting session, he urged staff to post messages on Twitter expressing their commitment to the embattled social networking firm.
"There is no other platform as powerful or as inspiring," one ad exec duly tweeted. "I want to say I was there," wrote another. Another posted a drawing showing how "your comfort zone" and "where the magic happens" are two distinct places.
Dorsey will need more than upbeat tweets to reboot the company as an internet darling. Its share price is in freefall, collapsing from US$69 ($106) two years ago to little more than US$16 today. There were hopes for a turnaround last October, when Dorsey - one of Twitter's founders and its first chief executive - returned to the top job. But his reappearance hasn't helped the share price: it is down more than 40 per cent since his return was confirmed.
Twitter has been through seven product heads in six years, and is failing to attract new users. Investors constantly compare it unfavourably with Facebook, Silicon Valley's most feted company.
Shareholders also worry that Dorsey may not be giving the problems his full attention because he is simultaneously overseeing the difficult birth of his second company, payments firm Square, where he is also chief executive.