Bye Bye Birdie
0.3 score and 7,000 tweets ago, a cocktail napkin changed my life…
I realize that’s hokey and hyperbolic, but it’s kind of true.
Here’s the story: in the winter of 2010 I met my friend Dick Costolo at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco for drinks. He was in his sixth month or so as the C.O.O. of Twitter and on the cusp of transforming the company from a precocious start-up to a laser-focused moneymaker. As we sipped our drinks he doodled on a paper napkin the earliest version of the business model and his ideas on what my role could be. Or maybe we just played hangman. Whatever, the point is a couple of months later I had an email job offer that simply said “I need you here yesterday.”
While I really wanted to work with Dick, I really wanted to work for Twitter. I was obsessed with the platform and intrigued by its potential. But not everybody was on Twitter like they were Facebook and (my old employer) YouTube, which I kind of liked. Twitter felt a little underground, like being part of a secret society. But in reality it was anything but. It was taking the world by storm, and I was naïve to just how important Twitter was or how much more important it would become. But that was about to change…
From the day I started the amazing stories of Twitter’s impact were shared widely across the company, from all-employee “buzz” emails to the “Twitter in the World” weekly all-hands segment. Notable guests from world leaders to celebrities often stopped by to share their personal experiences and confirm that our work really mattered. But it wasn’t until about 4 years into my Twitter tenure that its significance really hit me — like holy shit! hit me.
I was in Turkey to officially launch Twitter’s advertising business, and after an amazing week of energetic meetings and festive kickoff events we had the wind at our backs. But a strong headwind was about to hit us fast and hard. After many days of speculation, then-prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan banned Twitter. Like, he turned it off completely. He was in the Twitter hot seat, getting burned by a flood 0f 140-character criticisms from his many opponents. His solution? Censor an entire nation! You know you’ve arrived when a world leader shuts you down, but it definitely wasn’t a badge of honor. It was incredibly intense and personally a little scary to be cut off from something that, as American, I have a right to use every second of every day. That night in Istanbul transcended any internal email or guest speaker speaking of Twitter’s global importance. In an instant I became hyper-aware of both the communication challenges that exist in the world and the important role Twitter plays in helping to break down those barriers.
Who knew that a little square piece of three-ply tissue would lead to that kind of a life experience? But after six years of professional and personal adventures I never could have imagined, I’m leaving Twitter (as an employee — @grauface lives on in perpetuity!). These have been some of the best and most challenging years of my life — the highs were high and the lows were low, but the sum of those parts is incredibly rich and rewarding. I got to help architect a multi-billion dollar business from the ground up, build award-winning teams, launch over a dozen international markets, live abroad (thanks, Dublin!), live and breathe an IPO, and meet some of the most amazing leaders and influencers worldwide. Only one word can describe that: lucky.
So I leave “the flock” with nothing but gratitude. I’m grateful to @jack for setting up his twttr. I’m grateful to @dickc for making this wild ride possible. I’m grateful to Twitter EMEA for taking such good care of me for 2 years while I was a clumsy expat. I’m grateful to my teammates, confidants, peers, mentors, bosses, and adversaries (hey, we all have them!). They’ve all helped me be a better colleague and leader, and importantly they’ve taught me how to celebrate successes with greater humility and embrace failures with greater pride.
But most of all I’m grateful for the lifelong friendships I have made — there is really nothing better than that.
For my finale, I’ll end this post in meta fashion: a little scribble with a big message…
