Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Twitter Inc., has stepped down and said Parag Agrawal will succeed him — both announcements put out on Twitter on Monday.

“After almost 16 years of having a role at our company…from co-founder to CEO to Chair to Exec Chair to interim CEO to CEO…I decided it’s finally time for me to leave,” Dorsey said in a mail, published on his Twitter page Monday, detailing his resignation, explaining the reason and also announcing his successor, Parag Agrawal.

“Parag is CEO starting today. I am going to serve on the board through my term (May-ish) to help Parag and Bret with the transition,” Dorsey further said, adding, “Why not stay or become a chair?”

According to Dorsey, his continued presence in the company could hamper the new chief exec’s functioning, who would certainly need more space to lead. “I believe it’s critical a company can stand on its own, free of its founder’s influence or direction,” he reasoned.

Putting his confidence in Agrawal, Dorsey said that the board ran a rigorous process “considering all options and unanimously appointed Parag”. He added that Agrawal was his personal “choice” as he had been behind “every critical decision that helped  turn this company around”.

The new CEO, an Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay alumni, started in Twitter as an engineer.

Agrawal followed Dorsey in his footsteps by posting the mail he wrote on his Twitter page, expressing gratitude for outgoing CEO’s “continued mentorship” and “friendship”.

“Our purpose has never been more important. Our people and our culture are unlike anything in the world. There is no limit to what we can do together,” Agrawal said, referring to Team Twitter.

He added: “We recently updated our strategy to hit ambitious goals, and I believe that strategy to be bold and right. But our critical challenge is how we work to execute against it and deliver results.”

Agrawal also admitted that the “world is watching us right now” more than before and many people will have different views and opinions on the new development at Twitter. “It’s a signal that the work we do here matters. Let’s show the world Twitter’s full potential,” he added.

Earlier in the day, CNBC and Bloomberg had reported that Dorsey was likely to step down

Dorsey, 45, is also the head of payments company Square Inc. and has been taking an increasing interest in cryptocurrencies recently, CNBC had said.

The micro-blogging site, in the eye of the regulatory storm in several countries, including India and Russia, had earlier this year said it aims to have 315 million monetizable daily active users by the end of 2023 and to at least double its annual revenue in that year.

(Jack Dorsey photo courtesy 24celebs.com)