The chaotic story of Twitter as an EPIC TV Show with 7 Seasons
Where everyone is a villain and everyone is a hero.
Twitter’s story from 2006–2023 is so chaotic that it can be turned into an epic TV show with 7 seasons
It starts with 4 musketeers
• Evan Williams
• Noah Glass
• Jack Dorsey
• Biz Stone
And ends with the big baddie Elon Musk
Here’s the story from Twitter to X divided into 7 seasons with extremely dangerous cliffhangers:
Season 1: The Origins
The pilot episode introduces Evan Williams in his fame era as the guy who first created Blogger as a side project and then sold it to Google.
Blogger was a diary website that was first meant for internal communication in a company that Evan was working on.
Blogger gave Evan his big break in the tech industry. People were recognizing him, he was featured in Forbes. And he made millions when Blogger was acquired by Google.
Since Evan became a known face, Noah Glass — his neighbour also recognized him from his balcony and shouted, ‘Hey Blogger! You’re Evan Williams from Blogger right?’
And pretty soon, Noah with his loud personality became friends with Evan.
Before meeting Evan, Noah was working on a pirate-radio project but after meeting him, he refocused his project to work with Blogger and started writing an application called AudBlog, Audio Blogger — that allowed anyone to post voice based blogs from their phone.
When Noah decided to turn AudBlog into a startup called Odeo — a service that would make it easy for anyone to make and share podcasts.
He asked Evan to invest in Odeo. Evan agreed reluctantly, as he didn’t want to mix friendship and business.
Odeo took off but after a few months, it needed more investment to survive. And Noah again had to ask Evan for money.
Evan agreed to finance more of the project and help secure funding in future, but on one condition — that Evan becomes the CEO.
Season 2: Entry of a Friend or Foe?
The journey of Odeo continues with Evan as the CEO.
But unlike Noah, who considered Odeo his baby, Evan had no interest in podcasting.
He had started to enjoy the label given to him. He didn’t want to be known as a one time-wonder.
Instead, he wanted to be known as the person who first took blogging mainstream & now is on the way to do the same with podcasting.
So Noah who has a loud passionate personality oftentimes overshadowed Evan in the company’s decisions and hiring. And anyone who is in the power doesn’t like to be undermined.
But Evan also didn’t like to address conflicts. So the resentment between them festered over time.
In the very next episode, you see a 28 year old guy with a silver nose ring and multiple tattoos sitting at the window of a coffee shop, punk music streaming in his years and his fingers dancing over his keyboard and coding.
That’s Jack Dorsey.
He notices Evan enter into the coffee shop. And instantly recognized him as the guy who sold Blogger for millions.
He searched for Evan’s email ID and sent him an email along with his resume saying, ‘I just saw you at the cafe, are you hiring?’
Jack gets hired at Odeo.
Surprisingly, one of Jack’s tattoos on his left forearm read, ‘Odaemon!?’
The word ‘daemon’ referred to a computer program that runs in the background.
To Jack, this signified what he saw in himself, a person who lived behind the curtain, worked in the shadow & had little influence.
But that’s the thing, the people who work in the shadows know which strings to pull to turn the whole game in their favor.
The exclamation mark in the tattoo showed his excitement for life and the question mark showed his curiosity.
But the tattoo has long been covered up now. Maybe it lost its meaning to its owner.
Evan acted like a magnet for assembling the future team of Twitter.
He met Noah as his neighbour
He met Jack because he was at the right coffee shop at the right time.
And he met Biz Stone, the 4th Musketeer…
Well, he didn’t exactly meet Biz.
Biz reached out to him after quitting his job at Google and leaving 2 million dollars in stock options just to work with him.
One might wonder, what’s so special about Evan? Other than, he sold his company to Google and made some money out of it.
You see, Evan took care of his friends. Whenever any of his friends would get stuck in a financial crisis, he would help them out without expecting anything in return.
Well, except that one time when insecurity drove him to bargain for a CEO position.
Also, Biz got into Google following Evan and wanted to quit and join Odeo following Evan.
Not only friends but investors also trusted Evan blindly.
Even with no business model, Odeo received 5 million dollars in funding. It was a bet on podcasting and Evan and not necessarily on the company or the people working for it.
But even after getting funding, Odeo was a mess. No one who worked there even used it. And the final blow to Odeo was when Steve Jobs declared that Apple was adding podcasts to iTunes.
In that moment, where the entire company thesis for Odeo was based on podcasting, it had become a simple add on for Apple.
Season 3: The Pivot
Evan wanted to dissolve Odeo as he saw no future in it.
But Noah was desperately trying to find new ideas to save the company. Or at least the people in it.
He would try to probe employees to see what ideas they have.
So one day while having drinks, Noah probes Jack and asks him what he wants to do and Jack says he wants to go into fashion and make jeans.
Noah continues asking, what else is he interested in.
And then Jack mentions an idea that was always at the back of his head — a one-off site where people could share their status, like telling people what music they are listening to.
Noah resonated with the idea and said, ‘This status thing could help connect people who weren’t there. Something that makes people feel less alone.’
To give this status thingy a name Noah spent hours going through the dictionary, and then his phone vibrated.
His vibrating phone led him to think of the brain impulses that cause a muscle to ‘twitch’
He thought ‘twitch’ would never work. 👀
But he still kept going through the ‘tw’ section.
And then he found it,
Twitter — The light chirping sound made by certain birds.
Noah discussed this idea with Evan. And Evan got so intrigued that he built his own crude version of Twitter using old Blogger code. He called it Twitlog.
The project gave him a glimpse into what a Twitter like experience could be.
This time he was all in, his gut was telling him that this thing should be built.
Evan used to organize hack days to Odeo for employees to work on new ideas.
And in Odeo’s last hack day — one of the projects built was Twitter.
The difference between Twitter and Odeo was that no one in the team used Odeo even with incentive but the team got addicted to Twitter within a few hours.
On March 21, 2006, Jack tweeted, ‘just setting up my twttr’
A tweet that was going to be followed by a lot of celebrities, politicians and millions of people.
Season 4: Betrayal of a Friend
With the company pivoting from Odeo to Twitter, Evan was going to present the idea of making Noah the CEO as Evan wanted to focus on other things.
But Noah messed up. Big time.
You see, people who run too high on emotions aren’t able to keep their head in the game and start losing. They aren’t considered an ideal candidate for any leadership position.
Everything was crumbling down in Noah’s personal and professional life.
He would lash out at employees for the tiniest of reasons.
And then there was a lack of communication and growing resentment between Noah and Evan.
Jack who was the most important developer on Twitter was also irritated by Noah’s behavior. He didn’t like it when engineers would complete tasks assigned by Noah first and ignore him.
So Jack went to Evan and gave him an ultimatum and said, ‘If Noah stays, I’m going to leave’
For Evan the choice was simple. Even though he could see Noah was falling apart and he was trying to hold onto anything as he fell. But he couldn’t risk the newborn Twitter falling with him.
He fired Noah.
Or more like he created a tradition where the person is given a choice, ‘Resign yourself before you get fired publicly’
Noah never imagined that the power he gave to his friend & neighbour in exchange for the early funding would be one day used to fire him from his own company.
He resigned.
Noah turned to Jack, his ‘friend’ for comfort.
The ‘friend’ who had drinks with him, comforted him and acted as if he isn’t the one who gave the gun to Evan to fire the shot.
And let him believe that it was all Evan’s decision.
Season 5: Entry of the Devil
Jack took on the leadership of Twitter after Noah was pushed out.
Since he was the most important developer & also the one making important decisions, he was made the CEO of Twitter.
Evan took on the chairman role as he wanted to focus on his other ventures.
But Jack didn’t have any leadership skills or management skills, so others were skeptical of this decision. And rightfully so.
You see, if you give immense power to someone, more than they are ready for. It messes up with their head and:
- Gives them an ego complex
- They become susceptible to manipulation
- And become ignorant.
And if that someone is the CEO of a company. It puts the company in a vulnerable position.
Twitter was this shiny new toy that everyone wanted to get their hands on and play with.
And Mark Zuckerberg was one of those people.
He befriended Jack and convinced him to sell Twitter to Facebook.
And in the delusion of friendship Jack ‘discussed’ insights about Twitter with Mark. Like how much the team thinks Twitter’s valuation is and things like that.
Jack was also messing things up at Twitter due to his ignorance and ego. And Twitter started facing a lot of problems.
So Evan had to get involved in the daily operations and take over the CEO position from Jack.
Instead of completely firing Jack from the company, Evan gave a conciliatory prize to Jack by making him the silent chairman of the company, without any voting rights.
Jack was already resenting Evan for undermining him and then getting fired was a huge blow to his ego.
Jack getting fired also put a bummer in Mark’s plan as well.
As Facebook’s acquisition offers were simple.
A threat with a Kiss: ‘You join us and we live happily ever after or you say no and we do everything in our power to destroy you.
Jack didn’t need such threats. As he was already sold on the idea.
But as the deal approached the finish line, Evan removed Jack from the driver’s seat, spinned the wheel and turned the company to a completely different direction.
Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, all had tried to buy Twitter at some point of time. But Evan took a stand by saying No.
Evan would have easily become a billionaire in a sale to Facebook or any other major firms.
But it wasn’t about money this time. Evan saw Twitter serving a much more important purpose than becoming a big business.
It was about protecting the sanctity of Twitter and giving a voice to the people who use it.
Evan believed Facebook to be a corporate money machine that would do anything to make more money.
Mark didn’t like to lose. So he switched his battle plan from trying to buy Twitter to trying to hire Jack.
A move that could publicly show a lack of confidence in Twitter — a co-founder getting in bed with its biggest competitor.
For Jack, this was the perfect revenge plan.
But the only reason he didn’t go along with it is because Mark didn’t offer him a fancy title. Because without a title Jack would become a laughing stock.
Right now, the news in the media was ‘Twitter’s CEO and Chairman switch roles’
No one in the media knew that he was fired. And Jack took full advantage of that fact.
As a silent board member, Jack didn’t have any say in the company’s daily operations but he chose to accept any press invitation that came his way.
And he created a personal brand so strong that changed the whole narrative of who people see as the ‘inventor’ of Twitter.
Jack surely had a gem of an idea of people sharing their status. But without Odeo, the idea would have remained just that — an idea.
As Jack was more interested in going into fashion and making jeans.
It was Noah’s determination to save Odeo that brought Jack’s status idea to a group of people.
Without Noah’s vision of the service that could connect people who felt alone and a name that people would remember. Twitter would never have existed.
It was Evan who insisted on making Twitter about ‘what’s happening’ and without his investment and Silicon Valley fame, Twitter would have never grown as rapidly as it did.
And without Biz’s ethical stance on protecting and standing up for people who used their service. Twitter would have become a very different company.
But all of that got lost when Jack started creating a new narrative in media.
And he repeated it so many times that it almost became the truth.
Jack presented himself as the founder, inventor & creator of Twitter — The sole person behind Twitter.
‘The one who tells the story, sets the narrative’ and Jack Dorsey did a mind blowing job at that.
The only problem?
Instead of creating a personal brand that’s an extension of himself. He created a mirage, an illusion that portrayed himself as Steve Jobs 2.0
He followed Steve Jobs’ playbook to the T. He started by dressing like him, tweeting about beetles, talking about Mahatma Gandhi and non-violence. He even started using Steve Jobs’ exact words in his speeches.
The tech blogs believed that Jack had founded and built Twitter on his own and he possessed the same principles and vision as Steve Jobs.
Season 6: The Misguided Trust
Twitter was growing at a staggering rate. On surface, everything was going great except for a few hiccups now and then.
Evan used to take a long time to make decisions. And that vice caught up to him when he procrastinated making decisions altogether, which led to delays and flaws in Twitter.
When a few employees felt directionless because of Evan’s lack of quick decision making, they went to Jack.
Believing the same narrative as the outside world that Jack is powerful and is involved in high level decision making.
Very few people knew that Jack was a silent board member who didn’t have any powers.
Like Jobs, Jack understood that he could whisper in one person’s ear & those murmurs would turn into shouts somewhere else.
Jack moved people around like pawns in a chess match, ensuring that the right thing landed in the right people’s ear.
Jack’s media narrative was so strong that even one of the new investors believed him and thought that he was wrongly fired.
And hence Jack found his way in.
Evan had a habit of hiring friends & family. And one of his trusted friends was Dick Costolo. He met him at Google and hired him as Twitter’s COO in 2009.
After joining Twitter, Dick’s first tweet was,
“First full day as Twitter COO tomorrow.
Task #1: undermine CEO, consolidate power.”
It was meant to be a joke and not a manifestation.
The board decided to remove Evan as the CEO, make Dick the CEO & bring back Jack.
Once Evan was pushed out. Jack pushed his agenda of mobile-first status messages and not web-first news like messages. A suggestion that was previously ignored.
You see even with all the clashes, Jack and Evan both were fundamental to what Twitter became.
The perfect equilibrium of two different ways of looking at the world:
- Fulfilling the need to talk about yourself.
- And the need to let people know about what’s happening around them.
Their balance or battle had created Twitter.
A tool that could be used by companies and teens, celebrities & nobodies, government officials & revolutionaries.
A place where people with fundamentally different views of the world could converse.
Along with making sure that the company retained the ethical values instituted by the early followers, Dick also took on the responsibility of making Twitter profitable.
He grew Twitter to a 10 billion dollar evaluation.
But he took the CEO position as interim CEO. Because the ultimate goal of the board was to bring back Jack as the CEO.
And in 2015, chairs were rotated, Dick ‘stepped down’ and Jack took over as the interim CEO for 3 months then full time CEO.
SEASON 7: The Kingdom Shatters
After reigning for 5 years, the board again played musical chairs for the CEO. Jack ‘stepped down’ and Parag Agrawal the CTO of Twitter took over as the CEO.
It’s because Twitter was going through a lot of controversies & downs and downs.
And just because one starts wearing gold dust and starts shining on the outside, it doesn’t make them actual gold.
Jack’s performance as a CEO wasn’t up to the par.
When Parag took over as the CEO Twitter was barely surviving as it is when on the other end of the spectrum, someone was bored and looking for a challenge.
That someone was Elon Musk.
Elon’s recent stock sales of Tesla had left him with $10 billion. And he didn’t just want to leave it in the bank.
So what did he do? He decided to buy Twitter.
He has always liked Twitter because it has been an ideal playground for him, where he can be impulsive, irrelevant & unfiltered.
Elon was dabbling with the idea of buying Twitter or starting a new platform altogether.
Elon met with Parag Agarwal and found him to be a really nice guy.
But being ‘a really nice guy’ isn’t what a CEO necessarily needs.
Elon first joined the Twitter board and quickly figured out the most important thing that’s ruining Twitter.
The Twitter Board.
It doesn’t matter who’s the CEO, they are the ones running the asylum. Even though they have little to no involvement in the service and the tech side.
Elon saw Twitter becoming an everything app. Something that could fulfil his vision for X.com and Paypal — a social network that supported financial transactions.
He saw that Twitter was heading towards a cliff and to save it, he needs to buy it, take it private and fix it.
A lot of drama went down with the legalities and lawsuits.
And ultimately Elon bought Twitter for $44 billion.
During the closing of the Twitter Deal, Elon and his team methodically planned everything in such a way that Elon could fire Parag and other executives before their stock option could vest.
Remember that tradition where Twitter’s CEO would be given an ultimatum of ‘get fired publicly or willingly step down’?
Elon Musk broke that tradition.
Before Parag could send in his resignation letter, minutes before he was fired.
Since the start, everyone knew that Twitter has extraordinary potential but no one exactly knew how to unlock it until Elon Musk.
Twitter also adopted to the woke culture that focused on psychological safety, high empathy, inclusion & diversity. Which made it so fragile and coddled that it needed 2500 software engineers to run, whereas Tesla’s autopilot Team was running on only 200.
Comfort is the enemy of urgency, progress and orbital velocity.
Unlike Twitter’s ‘psychological safety’ Elon’s favourite buzzword was ‘hardcore’.
So when he fired 70% of Twitter’s staff he didn’t care about diversity, equity or inclusion.
He believed in strict meritocracy — whoever is doing great work, they get more responsibility, as simple as that.
Twitter has been built on emotions, for over a decade, it was running on emotions.
And Elon Musk has an intuitive feel for engineering issues but his neural nets have trouble dealing with human feelings.
And that’s what makes X so different from Twitter.
Twitter went from being among the most nurturing workplaces, with free meals and yoga studios, paid rest days and concern for psychological safety to the other extreme.
And Elon Musk didn’t do this just for cost reasons.
It’s because he prefers a scrappy hard driven environment, where warriors felt psychological danger rather than comfort.
Elon is like a brilliant but abrasive taskmaster with a reality distortion field who would drive his employees crazy but also drive them to do things they thought were impossible.
And that’s how Ladies and Gentlemen, Twitter was running almost smoothly even when 70% of its staff was fired.
Now X is going through its own ups and downs with new features, new sources of revenue and creator economy.
After all the show must go on right?
Thanks for reading!
Until next time.
Here’s something about me —
- I love digging into history, the human psyche and business. And then write about them from a nuanced perspective.
- I am super active on Twitter, so feel free to drop me a message there.
