Book Review of “Hatching Twitter” — (17/52)
Nick Bilton’s story of the rise of Twitter highlights the tough environments that produce world-changing companies
The creation of the social media company, Twitter, can be attributed to two main facets: Loneliness and vision.
The initial idea for Twitter began out of a podcasting company called Odeo. During the mid-2000s, Odeo was a fledgling company that had Evan Williams as its CEO. However, Odeo had been found by Noah Glass, who eventually had to relinquish his ownership of the company since Ev Williams was clearly better suited for the executive role. Later, Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone would join the company.
Together, these four individuals would corral their intuition, vision, and design-sense in order to create a new status-updating site called Twitter. Glass, who settled on the name “Twitter” by working through the dictionary, immediately realized the full potential of the venture. Around the time of Twitter’s birth, Glass had seen his life change completely as his marriage fell apart (and his relationships with his co-workers at Odeo were no better off). In this time of utter loneliness and disappointment, Glass realized that Twitter could “help connect people to those who weren’t there.”
“It wasn’t just about sharing what kind of music you were listening to or where you were at that moment; it was about connecting people and making them feel less alone.” (Page 56)
Excited by the potential significance of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, along with a few other programmers at Odeo, began to code up the site. It should be noted that while Glass recognized the potential of Twitter, it was Jack Dorsey who initially suggested the idea of a site that could allow users to post statuses about their whereabouts. In essence, Twitter was never really “invented” by Jack Dorsey alone, it became Twitter because of his, Noah’s, Biz’s, and Ev’s vision for the company and the resulting product.
Biz Stone was placed in charge of the design work and the branding. The iconic Twitter “bird” logo can be accredited to Biz’s keen design ethos and capabilities. Ev Williams, as the CEO of Odeo, was working to see if Odeo could be sold so that the whole staff could begin working on Twitter (the Twitter staff basically consisted of Dorsey, Stone, Glass, and a few other developers). Unfortunately, Odeo was a lost cause and, in the end, Williams ended up buying out the company out of his pocket. This, in turn, would mean that when Twitter was fully created, Williams would retain 70% of the ownership, with Dorsey (Twitter’s first CEO) retaining another 20%.
Noah Glass, while influential to the early development of Twitter’s vision and purpose, began to serve a rather demoralizing and straining role. At one point, Dorsey became so frustrated with Glass that he gave Ev an ultimatum: Either Williams fired Glass or Dorsey (the lead developer for Twitter) would quit. Ev, whose relationship with Glass had also decayed over time, made the decision to axe Glass from Twitter.
Jack vs. Ev
After Noah Glass left Twitter, the infighting still did not quell. Now, Jack Dorsey, the first CEO of Twitter, and Ev Williams, Chairman, were constantly at loggerheads about the main intention of Twitter. Ev saw Twitter as a medium through which pertinent news information, not just statuses, could be delivered. Jack voiced a polar opposite opinion by asserting that Twitter’s main purpose was to broadcast “what was happening to him.”
“…philosophically Jack and Ev were developing different viewpoints as to what Twitter was. And what it had the potential to be.” (Page 95)
Ultimately, Ev, growing weary from constantly fighting with Dorsey, began to explore ways in which Dorsey could be persuaded differently. While Ev may have wanted to still co-exist with Jack, Twitter’s Board of Directors were adamant about Ev replacing Jack as the CEO. The Board felt that with Jack at the helm, the company would simply crumble; however, with Ev, who had successfully found and sold Blogger to Google before joining Odeo, in charge of Twitter, the young company could start making the required progress.
In an emotional and heartfelt motion, the Board voted Jack out of the CEO-ship, and placed Ev in his role. To make matters worse, the Board also wrestled some of Jack’s shares away from him since they had not vested yet. However, Jack felt sucker-punched because he felt that his friend and the new CEO, Ev, had been behind Jack’s ousting all along.
And, Jack, seething with the injustice of it all, swore to deliver his revenge in due time.
Ev at the Helm
With Ev Williams as the CEO of Twitter, the company began to surge upwards once more. Ev brought a degree of control and planning to the day-to-day operations, which helped to create a better product. Jack, now free to spend his days as he chose, began to cause general upheaval as he saw fit.
“Although Jack didn’t have a say in the daily operations of the company, he chose to accept any press requests that came into his personal Twitter e-mail address, which he was allowed to keep as a silent board member.
He started to meet with reporters and bloggers, and sometimes narrated a story about the invention of Twitter that excluded everyone else’s role from the history of the company. No mention of Noah [Glass], Biz [Stone], Jeremy, Crystal, Blaine, Florian, Jeremy, or Tim. No mention of the other people in the room when Twitter was created or their role in the brainstorming sessions at breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and the hack days. And certainly no mention of Ev [Williams].”
(Page 172)
Ev, pushing Jack’s antics out of his mind, began to focus on expanding Twitter’s popularity and reach. He made appearances on the Oprah show, during which Oprah sent out her first tweet to her flocks of followers. Twitter also gained wide publicity when CNN and actor, Ashton Kutcher, began a very public “race” to see who would end up attracting one million Twitter followers. Although Kutcher won in the end, CNN viewers were definitely put on notice by Anderson Cooper’s pleading requests for them to go follow the CNN Twitter account.
On the operations front, Ev finally made the change in the Twitter status update box he so desperately desired. Under Jack’s reign, the Twitter status update box read “What are you doing?,” which reflected Jack’s belief that Twitter was all about what was happening to the him. Ev, who believed that Twitter was always about the events happening around him, changed the question to “What’s happening?,” a change that still exists to this day.
But, while it may have seemed as if Ev Williams won this battle, Jack, who was now the founder and CEO of Square, was secretly plotting to win the war by convincing the Twitter Board members to overthrow Ev from the CEO position.
Ev Overthrown
In the last seventy pages of Bilton’s book, Jack’s plan to surreptitiously oust Ev as Twitter’s CEO is put in place. Jack has convinced the Board members that Ev is not performing up to standards financially. While Ev had overseen the product development of Twitter in the past few years as the leader of the company, he still had ways to go in the development of a steady revenue stream. Additionally, Jack asserted to the Board members how Ev was quick to hire his friends while slow to make the important decisions that would benefit Twitter in the long run.
Slowly but surely, the Board members began to see the wisdom in Jack’s logic and in October 2010, they voted Ev Williams out of the CEO position. Jack Dorsey would be returning to the company as the Executive Chairman, while Ev was shunted to the product development role that was essentially a dead-end. The new CEO would be Dick Costolo, who still serves as the CEO today.
Admittedly, this last portion of the book surrounding Ev’s removal as the CEO of Twitter was very poignantly written by Bilton. At times, I felt for all of the main characters. I understood Jack’s incessant desire to finally get his revenge on Ev. I sympathised with Biz Stone for his confusion and anger at the events as they unfolded. And, finally, my heart went out to Ev as he spent his last days as CEO of Twitter not even knowing of the secret plans to oust him.
I was even more disappointed at the vicious behavior of the venture capitalists (Board members) of Twitter. In their greed for more money and a greater ROI on Twitter, they chose to devise cunning and extravagant plots behind the backs of CEOs. Bill Campbell, a “CEO Coach” that the Board seeks out to help Ev during his CEO tenure, also ends up causing more problems than he solves.
Essentially, the creation of Twitter is a bitter tale with a few triumphs here and there. All four of those founders paid a high price (I’m not talking about just money or bruised egos) in creating Twitter.
And, it’s a price that I’m not even sure all the money, stock options, or CEO titles in the world can ever cover.
Sources
Bilton, Nick. Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
Notes
This is the SEVENTEENTH post (out of 52 in total eventually) that is a part of my 2015 Book Reading Challenge.
If you liked this post, then please hit the green “Recommend” button below — thanks in advance!
