Twitter.com Full Story Revealed, Evan Williams created Blogger.com that was acquired by Google, he went moneyless and completely broke and had nothing but a great idea, Watch the full story. Twitter Founders: Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone
0:00 and it started as a simple question 0:03 but became one of silicon valley's great success stories 0:07 become in some ways to the polls at the Internet with the sirens freedom 0:12 we don't like censorship we don't like being blocked we think that the open 0:15 exchange of information came a positive global impact politicians bullhorn 0:20 and a cyber red carpet for celebrities reaching out to their fans 0:24 to be a successful start-up you need two fundamental things you need great 0:28 pounders 0:29 and you need a great opportunity blocking pioneer Evan Williams 0:32 with this stone and original inventor Jack Dorsey 0:36 found that opportunity in Twitter which has grown to over 175 million registered 0:41 users 0:42 who tweeted an average of $95 million times a day 0:46 it has travelled everywhere but the flight 0:49 was not always smooth some pretty dark times in 0:52 a large race would quit it's really a brand new communications platform 0:58 in its infancy and yet it's already scaled to several hundred million users 1:02 it's here to stay and I think it's gonna continue to change the world 1:18 welcome lol 1:19 for out twat 1:22 fuck the product is a short burst 1:27 information 140 characters or less 1:30 called tweets ok if you still not clear what exactly that is 1:35 or why it's important you're in good company even russian President Dmitry 1:39 Medvedev 1:40 New Zealand help I'm now in Tulare and this is my first met 1:45 it wasn't just his first week 1:48 because sign of Twitter's global influence that it was also his first 1:51 stop 1:52 on his first trip to the United States of 1:57 to it was started by these three men Evan Williams 2:00 Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey at the end of 2010 2:04 a round of funding value the company at 3.7 billion dollars 2:08 Tim O'Reilly is a publisher and trend spotter in the world 2:12 technology these guys did something not 2:16 because day knew exactly where it was gonna go 2:20 but because they thought it was a good thing in love itself 2:24 does your I think often the real game changer 2:27 Twitter's cofounder is blogging Trailblazer 2:30 Evan Williams the best and worst happen are two sides of the same point 2:35 Mike maples is the founder and Managing Partner the venture capital firm 2:39 floodgate 2:40 an early investor in Twitter I think he's stubborn 2:43 in the pursuit of the ideas he cares about but the thing that I've come to 2:46 appreciate over time is 2:47 he is driven by back believe the son of a farmer 2:52 Williams was born in 1972 and raised on the family farm 2:56 your clocks Nebraska make her hand has known william since the late 90's 3:01 you third of for children and his dad and his father like going hunting 3:06 and Evan the game so 3:09 I think that kinda the center how he fit in in rural nebraska 3:13 there's not a lot of early drinking begins on the farms 3:16 near where he grew up Williams passion wasn't farming 3:20 it was web design and programming after a year and a half at the University of 3:25 Nebraska 3:26 he dropped out and drifted from various technology jobs and startups 3:30 started my person and I come in nebraska in 1994 3:34 which required first explaining what the internet was admitted 3:38 own Malik is the founder of technology blog GigaOM 3:42 and has been writing about the web for over a decade you don't go to school to 3:45 be an entrepreneur you either have it or you don't 3:48 great F seems to have hey you're born with this 3:51 he'd be scared to see opportunities is inmate it's in your 3:54 you make and I can every long to that category of people just know 3:58 walk is happening ok 4:02 he took that entrepreneurial spirit West to the mecca for technology geeks 4:06 Northern California his first job there was working for Tim O'Reilly 4:11 he always had opinions about how things could be better 4:14 he wasn't satisfied with the status quo have 4:19 was not shot by about bloodiest know what he thought was not working and 4:24 how we could do a better job within a year 4:27 Williams moved on to writing computer code as an independent contractor 4:31 for companies like Intel and Hewlett Packard ID 4:34 in San Francisco he teamed up with software contractor 4:39 make her an my very very first impression was 4:43 he was kinda dorky because he had just gotten it keyboard 4:47 to put it Palm Pilot on know with lichen external keyboard you could mount a Palm 4:51 Pilot on 4:51 and used but kinda excited that you check out a new keyboard 4:55 they became a couple and started a company together 4:58 high relapse my yet very 5:02 he when we started pirate was 1999 it was 5:07 rate in a height of the dot-com boom 5:10 it was a really exciting time to be in in San Francisco of 5:14 power labs product with a web program designed to manage project 5:18 keep track up to do list and assemble Contax 5:21 one small feature with the Williams invented tool 5:25 to make it easy to update and online personal journal 5:28 at the time known as a weblog and then as a joke 5:32 a friend of ours sorted decided he wasn't on call at Webb log 5:36 he was gonna call block Williams saw a new product 5:40 Evans really good with names and branding we should call blogger 5:44 blogger dot com became a sensation 5:47 really couldn't believe it you know every day 5:51 there be more traffic on the website more user signing up and you take a 5:55 while if you've got to be a 5:56 can possibly continue at this rate the next it'd be more people 6:00 Ryan single is a staff writer at Weir dot com 6:03 we really know blogs Burke right this is the current do think it had decided he 6:07 wanted to 6:08 in the easy way to publish online read an article Robert something short of 6:11 their lives 6:12 and publish it and this was which is a new phenomenon blogging 6:15 what's this brilliant additional layer that made it possible 6:20 for somebody to work just with the cockpit case with the images taken 6:24 hack to anything technical so 6:27 it really made the web the web for everyone 6:31 ok but the big idea from the small startup wasn't enough to keep it afloat 6:36 it then hit an iceberg in 6:40 the market crash 2000 spell disaster for many in Silicon Valley 6:44 people were panicked dot com started to fail 6:48 we were prepared for how quickly everything would really kinda shutdown 6:52 fire welcome we manana money 6:55 I left because I was tremendously stressed 6:58 free download and Mike five figures and dad 7:01 the business relationship between by seven and was totally 7:04 freidan horrible and then kinda 7:08 closed up shop and took the servers back to his apartment 7:11 and hunker down to disorder ride out the storm 7:14 the postdoc come home once was ugly yeah 7:17 in San Francisco you have this whole good for people who thought they were 7:21 all getting on the train to riches have been also had to figure out what exactly 7:24 they wanted to do with their lives 7:26 the night Williams posted to his blog 7:29 that he was now bloggers only employee 7:32 he went through some pretty dark times and a large names would quit 7:36 have stuck with it when you're great entrepreneur you have to 7:39 you have to be willing to try few things it so if you don't love it 7:43 when you encounter fierce resistance or stupidity or the inertia that the world 7:47 Bros and Barnum you you're gonna give up you want persevere but if you truly love 7:51 an idea 7:52 you'll be so convinced that you're writing that the rest the world is wrong 7:55 just watch me 7:56 but you're just keep plugging away at it and that'll be what sustain you 8:00 on 8:03 in 8:06 up 8:11 Evan Williams was running blogger dot com by himself 8:14 the company was struggling barely surviving the dot-com bust 8:18 he had nothing but a great idea when he got a call from an 8:23 industry giant he called his former partner make her hand with the news 8:27 these are you sitting down and I said yeah 8:31 to know really are you sitting down again today 8:34 said with agreed to be acquired by Google the amount of the sale was never 8:38 disclosed 8:39 it's like playing in like you know AA levy 8:43 and then all the sudden like to call from the Yankees like to know I want you 8:46 to come play in the playoffs 8:47 Google was huge and they were cool and they were going places 8:51 it can be pretty amazing greater use computer while 8:54 hit the big time Google was going places 8:57 and Williams was going with him he went to work developing blogger dot com 9:02 for the exploding search giant during this time 9:05 his future business partner Biz Stone with 3,000 miles away 9:09 on the east coast working as a creative director had a competing blogging 9:13 website called 9:14 thank a dot com stone jumped on the blogging bandwagon 9:18 Lou Kerner is vice president a social media research 9:22 at Wedbush Securities young kids in particular 9:25 they start all the social media revelations and they were the early 9:28 entrants 9:29 and to blog in this blogging about their lives in xanga 9:32 provided one here early platforms for kids to do that 9:36 stone grew frustrated with the direction of his anger 9:39 he moved to Los Angeles in 2001 and wrote two books 9:43 on blogging for stone google also came calling 9:47 and hired him to help them develop their new acquisition 9:50 blogger dot com here's where Twitter's to future business partners first met 9:55 1999 Evan our basically rival 9:58 had rival companies and have 10:01 send me a note as how much you come or care for me 10:04 the first time we actually met with any when he pick me up at the airport to 10:07 take me to work 10:08 but their time in the company was limited after less than two years at 10:12 Google 10:13 Williams walked away in October 2004 10:16 he had never really gone to work for anyone or work 10:19 at a company he's an inventor he's an entrepreneur he's not one to 10:23 probably you know one have bosses on managers or work really within a 10:27 structure 10:28 you he wants to be able to build the things that occurred to him when they 10:31 occur to him 10:32 by the end of 2004 Williams wrote a business plan for a new internet startup 10:37 called 10:38 audio a podcasting company that would distribute and publish 10:42 audio on the web he raised five million dollars from some of the biggest names 10:47 in 10:47 angel money in venture capital including Google backer 10:51 Ron Conway Lotus founder Mitch kapor 10:54 and his old boss all Riley media chief Tim O'Reilly 10:57 ever having had a successful blogger I 11:01 say it relatively easy to raise and your money NBC money 11:04 around the idea that podcasting 11:07 I was gonna become and next generation blogging 11:11 stone left Google and join Williams 11:14 had polio but the young company suffered a devastating blow 11:18 audio hit a glass wall named 11:21 Apple Mike maples invested twenty five thousand dollars 11:26 in polio we were gonna take podcast the masses 11:29 well a week after he gets my check Apple gives podcasting away 11:33 on iTunes and when you're giving podcasting away 11:37 in all the playback devices our iPods it's not clear there is a business 11:41 anymore 11:47 theme 11:51 within six months of starting the podcasting company audio 11:54 Evan Williams reputation as a Silicon Valley success story 11:58 was taking a hit when thanks to Apple's iTunes 12:01 audios web music distribution venture was dead in the water 12:06 and by the end of 2005 everyone in Silicon Valley 12:09 knew it I didn't really think much about you I just an iPod 12:13 the idea of a podcasting company which is quite 12:17 marginal I never quite believed audio is the rate 12:20 fit for Evan because the podcasting 12:23 model didn't seem to mind well with his passions 12:28 while the company's prospects look dim there was help on the horizon 12:33 enter Jack Dorsey in 2005 12:37 Dorsey was running his own startup a map fanatic and self-proclaimed computer 12:42 geek 12:43 he was consumed with perfecting software systems for sending or dispatching 12:47 messages 12:48 instantly or 911 emergency centers and 12:51 occurs in taxes and whatnot the concept that came outta this 12:54 was this very simple here's where I am here's what I'm doing 12:59 anyone who's interested can follow along in real time 13:03 for years Dorsey had been looking to explore the potential %uh the dispatch 13:06 system that can help friends stay connected 13:10 after a chance encounter with Williams he thought he saw his opportunity 13:14 at that point I needed to get a real job and write a resume and 13:17 I'm a very low level programmer in my voice love that that aspect but 13:21 I wanted to do something different and I red 13:25 about from a successful blogger 13:27 over lunch at this children's playground the idea for Twitter was hatched 13:32 Dom's to Golar than a software engineer at audio 13:35 was at the meeting we climb to the top of the slide and 13:39 sat down and started hitting and Jack and himself he had to describe the idea 13:43 right off the bat the simplest thing that we can do 13:45 is for me to be able to send out a message from my phone 13:49 and every other people to be over to read it in real time 13:52 this idea that we have a friendship dispatch for important information 13:56 not emergency information up to friends and family 14:01 dorsey pressed Williams to let him try it saying 14:04 let's just do that its so simple the program we could do it 14:07 maybe in two days Williams gave him two weeks 14:11 dorsey asked Biz Stone to help develop the graphics and visual elements 14:16 two weeks later they had something 14:20 be built the system to immediately take a message 14:23 taken up a twenty dollar Nokia phone send a message that I'm in the middle of 14:28 Central Park in New York City 14:29 watching the keys Best Buy awake in ago 14:32 in so many to all your friends in real-time on March 21st 2006 14:39 dorsey sent the first message the product worked 14:42 but the friendship dispatch system needed to catch your name 14:46 ok know a glass a cofounder audio 14:50 scoured the Oxford English Dictionary in came across 14:54 Twitter short bursts of information or 14:57 tweets from bird 14:59 there was the most perfect thing cuz that's exactly what we're doing the new 15:04 Williams bought out a rodeo 15:05 forming a new company which became Twitter in April of 2007 15:10 the move cost him two million dollars 15:13 at him said to me literally we just don't think we have a business here 15:16 and rather than just spend all your money try to come up with something new 15:21 keep the plates getting I'm guessing give you money getting and in fact a lot 15:24 of the people that I busted in OT away 15:27 took their money back and chose not to invest it work 15:30 headquarters the investment by the way where he passed on it mock you ever 15:33 getting 15:34 Evan Williams was chairman of the board Biz Stone was creative director 15:39 and the soft-spoken Jack Dorsey was Twitter's first 15:42 CEO with this music festival that helps 15:51 Twitter really take off in 2007 at the annual South by Southwest Music & 15:56 Technology festival in Austin Texas 15:59 we're broke out with the public weird 16:05 where I would like to thank the Lord 16:11 that them we hear 16:17 printed two screens and we put them in the hallways and may 16:21 would show what people were saying about stuff by selfless when we saw Twitter 16:27 operating in the wild for the first time at this festival we 16:30 witness people moving together as one 16:33 and we listed this idea I would have a fun 16:37 Kiki festival what if this were and other events around the world 16:41 Twitter had met its tipping point during the festival 16:45 usage tripled from 20,000 tweet today to 16:48 60,000 tweeted Twitter just showed up in the world 16:52 at a time when there was a demographic shift in how computing was being used 16:57 when computers were no longer productivity tools social tools that 17:00 enable 17:01 expression it quickly became a vehicle for 17:04 sharing what am i reading now when I thinking now 17:08 where am I now my saying now but Williams and his team weren't prepared 17:14 for how many people wanted to share 17:16 as Williams later told Charlie Rose some have suggested for probs for a while 17:20 there may be still 17:21 get a problem with crashing because there was so much usage 17:25 we did we had a terrible first year-and-a-half actually 17:30 where the site went down a lot was slow a lot 17:33 and it took us a long time to get out but almost 17:37 and almost killed us if with Twitter experiencing growing pains 17:41 Williams blog to the company needed a more focused approach from a single 17:46 leader 17:47 original inventor dorsey stepped down as CEO 17:50 and Williams took over Twitter found itself on 17:54 everyone's radar and that included one very interested 17:58 potential competitor it was kinda looking like Facebook was gonna be 18:02 pushed off to the side in go 18:11 yelled 18:13 Twitter wasn't international sensation in one year alone 18:18 subscribers to the social networking and micro-blogging site 18:21 grew more than a staggering thirteen hundred percent got all the attention 18:27 here 18:28 West this attention I that got the attention of Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg 18:32 the Muslims I get his dad Mark Zuckerberg probably has a vision for 18:37 where he wants to take 18:39 Facebook any probably look down the road and software 18:43 on that road to keeping is being 18:47 sucker bird tried to acquire Twitter business week reported he had offered 18:51 $500 million dollars worth of cash and Facebook stock 18:54 which CEO Evan Williams turned down I 18:58 we thought about it carefully and I I can say you know 19:01 offers are in various forms a seriousness and who knows if 19:05 you know they would have done it but are now sis was 19:08 carefully considered where whereas and 19:11 for-profit company we have outside investor they have to look at these 19:15 deals but I never felt like it was the best thing for Twitter 19:18 the potential is so great that 19:21 to stop now even Adam you know 19:25 a big win financially would just feel like a las 19:29 ok by 2008 users were posting 300,000 tweets per day 19:36 up users that included Oprah Winfrey 19:39 when Oprah tweeted hope reduced winner Ted 19:44 tens of millions %uh people would never even heard it order before 19:48 so was great free advertising for Twitter and it didn't stop there 19:53 ok being on Oprah wasn't as important as 19:57 the state department asking Twitter not go on its daily maintenance because 20:02 the wrong elections were being broadcast on Twitter ok 20:06 following allegations of fraud in the 2009 20:09 Iranian election protesters took to the streets authorities in the country 20:14 censored cell phone messages newspapers and web sites that covered the 20:19 increasingly violent protest 20:21 eclipsing traditional and mainstream news 20:24 Twitter became the outside world primary source for information 20:28 on here on I don't like censorship we don't like being locked 20:32 we think that the open exchange of information came a positive global 20:35 impact 20:36 we've always been pro information-sharing democratization 20:39 information 20:40 and you know more information is better clear really got global attention 20:46 from how its communications platform was able to spread news about 20:50 what otherwise probably you know most people on the planet when I heard about 20:54 even when were blocked in a country 20:57 we still see trafficked and it's because smart so can I come here 21:01 figure out ways to get around those blocks 21:05 by the end of 2009 the number 21:08 tweets went up to 2 1/2 million per day with Stephen Colbert was not prepared 21:15 any cold founder of Twitter 21:18 140 characters was was texting too complex 21:21 I mean what the limit on tax a 160 character haha 21:25 we want to reserve a little better room for a username and 21:28 so we made in 140 in standard there and you'd be surprised that the creativity 21:32 could 21:37 everybody was talking about Twitter but one big question still dogged the 21:41 founders 21:42 how you can make money you know it's like I don't think they're going to 21:45 start walk down the street without somebody to serve with gonna make money 21:48 you give us an outlook for the rest of the year 21:50 Twitter's first developer conference in April 2010 21:54 the Twitter founders finally introduced a plan for how the company might make 21:58 money 21:59 we expect p at program to be the Promoted Tweets that we're launching 22:03 are we just want to speak to certainly be the largest hard 22:07 a in in a few months but it's going to take a while the ramp-up 22:10 Promoted Tweets to allow people to 22:13 in a transparent way put marketing messages 22:16 front people who follow put our streams 22:20 and it will be interesting to see how it works I think the company knows that 22:23 it's a work in progress mine 22:26 five months later Twitter began rolling up a major redesign of its website 22:31 saying they wanted to make it faster and easier to use 22:35 the new three weeks later came a bigger announcement 22:39 Evan Williams was stepping down as CEO of the company 22:42 replacing him as CEO would be former chief operating officer 22:47 Dick Costolo were growing it just a ridiculous 22:50 rate you know having been having run up a few other companies and 22:54 and having spent a couple years ago Google the pace of growth that we 22:58 the is just you know I've never seen anything like it the Castillo 23:01 longtime known quantity in Silicon Valley the operations guy 23:05 even though he's chief executive officer is really so the operations guy 23:09 events he's an idea guy but he's not a CEO kinda guy 23:13 William said he asked cost allowed to take the job 23:16 so he could be completely focused on product strategy 23:21 one simple question what's happening 23:24 is transforming how we communicate 23:28 by the end of 2010 around a funding value Twitter's worth X 3.7 billion 23:33 dollars 23:34 with reports just months later that it had grown 23:37 even more Twitter remains a favorite celebrities like Lady Gaga 23:42 who is the most followed person on Twitter Justin Bieber 23:46 runs a close second my the State Department has recognized its reach 23:51 and is now using it as a modern-day Voice of America 23:55 quarters having an impact on world history but they're just Arbor many 23:58 companies do that there are many companies to change democracy 24:02 the change expression the change media 24:05 ok there's no question that where of his becoming part of the fabric of our 24:11 society a way that people communicate in a way that news is 24:15 disseminated its to a rare birds 24:18 that communication we don't really know the meaning of 24:22 and yet it is profoundly important 24:28 and 24:33 are 24:35 and 24:38 and are 24:40 the 24:47 and the new the No 24:56 and ok 25:00 I'm
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