Twitter's new meme: Let's get small(er)T

The conventional wisdom is that turnover is part of the natural growing pains any tech startup faces. Still, the announced departures of three major players at Twitter in the last 24 hours, is going to raise inevitable questions.

The roster includes: Chief Scientist Abdur Chowdhury, Fred Wilson and Bijan Sabet, two of Twitter's earliest investors who also are members of the company's board of directors. They will give up their board seats at the end of this month.

Coincidence or smoke signs of trouble? Nick Carlson offers up the conspiracist theory, which is a lot juicier than the official explanations offered by all sides. To put this into context, let's note that Chowdhury did come to Twitter via Summize, a search engine he helped co-found, and that Twitter acquired in 2008. It is hardly beyond the pale to believe that as a former boss, he's come down with understandable wunderlust after being required to report to someone else for the last three years.

As for the two money guys, Peter Kafka at AllThingsD has been asking around and he reports that the departures of Wilson and Sabet haven't left any bad blood. And yet the shakeup takes place against the background of a recent move by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone to work on a startup with Evan Williams, Twitter's other co-founder as well as the dismissal of four product engineers. Chalk it up to a changing of the guard - a transition perhaps hastened by folks cashing out given Twitter's Twitter's $800 million funding.