ColdFusion - Scandal and Betrayal: The Story of How Twitter Started

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, welcome to another Coldfusion video. Twitter today is how hundreds of millions of people communicate. It's how the news today breaks. 83% of world leaders are on Twitter. In a way, it's actually the most instant communication network on the planet. It's augmented the internet and how information is disseminated. But the story of how Twitter started is one field with betrayal and controversy. Here's a Twitter account owned by a man named Noah Glass.

Starting point is 00:00:30 His bio reads, I started this. If I was to tell you that Noah, the owner of this Twitter account with only 38,000 followers, helped start Twitter but was kicked out of the company before it got off the ground, you may not believe me, but that is true. So why doesn't anyone know about Noah and why did he get kicked out? Well, it's partly because of this man, Evan Williams, but also because of this man, Jack Dorsey.

Starting point is 00:00:58 It was a coup within the company. to rid Noah. Not only this, but co-founder of Twitter, Evan Williams, may have cheated investors out of hundreds of millions by bluffing. So let's explore how one of the most recognizable social media companies had such a controversial beginning. Most people think that the story of Twitter starts with Jack Dorsey or Evan Williams, but its story actually begins with Noah.

Starting point is 00:01:23 And that's where we'll start. You are watching Tell Fusion TV. Our story starts in San Francisco. in the early 2000s. Noah Glass had created a product where a user would dial a number and the service would turn your voice message into an MP3 message, which would be hosted on the internet. Remember, these were the early days of the web where everything was relatively new and people were throwing around crazy business ideas. Noah would turn this online voicemail idea into a company called Odeo. One of the early investors in Odeo was a former Google employee, friend and also

Starting point is 00:02:07 a neighbor of Noah, Evan Williams. Evan had recently sold his company called blogger to Google, and he had a ton of cash. The idea turned from hosting voice messages as MP3s to a podcasting platform. The company moved into an office and started hiring more employees. One of these employees was a quiet on-again, off-again, web designer and university dropout by the name of Jack Dorsey. The 29-year-old was shy after battling a speech impediment as a child. He was living in a tiny San Francisco apartment and had recently been turned down for a job at a shoe store. Around this time, before smartphones, iPods were the hottest thing and everyone had one. In 2005, Apple announced that iTunes would include a podcasting platform built into every one of those tens of millions of iPods in people's pockets.

Starting point is 00:03:04 The employees of Odeo began to realize that Apple had just crushed them without warning. In addition to this, they just didn't listen to podcasts as much as they thought they would. Evan Williams, who by now was the Odeo CEO, knew that Odeo as a podcasting platform was doomed. He contemplated shutting down the company, but Noah thought that it was best to see what the employees could come up with. Evan agreed, and in a last-ditch effort, he told the company's employees to start coming up with ideas for a new direction for audio. Employees would break into groups and spend the whole day working on projects. After a hard day's work, the office crew would often see live music shows and drink late into the night, usually talking about technology. During this time, Jack Dorsey and Noah Glass

Starting point is 00:03:56 really hit it off, and soon they were inseparable. Great news. The federal EV rebate is back. Eligible customers get up to $5,000 with the federal EVAP rebate on select 2027-volt and 26 Equinox EV models. Visit your local Chevrolet dealer today for more details. Back at work, when looking at what the staff was working on to save audio, Noah Glass gravitated towards Jack. He thought of him as one of the best stars in the company. Jack had an idea for a completely different product that revolved around status.

Starting point is 00:04:30 statuses were a popular idea in the 2000s. Facebook featured them heavily, and 4Square was based totally around that, not to mention the Bourbon app which would later become Instagram. Here's nowhere explaining it further. Quote, I got the impression Jack was unhappy with what he was working on, a lot of clean-up work on audio. He started talking to me about this idea of status and how he was really interested in statuses.

Starting point is 00:04:57 I was trying to figure out what he found so compelling about it, Noah goes on to describe a moment when he and Jack were talking in his car after a night of drinking. It was about 2 a.m. and raining outside. Jack said that he wanted to quit the tech world altogether and become a fashion designer. Noah was taken aback and he pushed Jack to explain his status idea further. Quote, there was a moment when I was sitting with Jack and I said, Oh, I do see how this could really come together to make something really compelling. It all fit together for me.

Starting point is 00:05:30 One day, in February of 2006, Noah and Jack presented the idea to the rest of the company. It was a system where you could send a text to the number 4404, and the text message would be broadcasted to all your friends. They would receive an SMS of what you wrote, and you could add more friends via text message. So what would they call this thing? After dismissing the word Twitch for a name, they would call it Twitter. Noah would take charge of the Twitter project while Jack did the coding. The original Twitter was a social network anchored around text messaging. It sounds weird today, but back then, the technology that was widely adopted

Starting point is 00:06:11 wasn't capable enough to have instant social media with you. This kind of service was the closest thing. Interestingly, they weren't the only ones. A service called Dodgeball was another SMS social media network. With Twitter though, instead of just text messages, users could post and view messages via the Twitter website. After the February presentation to the company, Evan Williams was skeptical about Twitter's potential. But regardless, he put Noah in charge of the project. Twitter is a social texting service based on the contents of your mind.

Starting point is 00:06:44 It works with your cell phone and shortcode 40404, and it then goes to each and every one of your many, many actionable friends. Noah was passionate about Jack's idea and understood it. By March of 2006, Odeo had a working Twitter prototype. In July, TechCrunch covered Twitter for the first time. Their conclusion was as follows. Quote, If this was a new startup, I'd give it a thumbs up for innovation and good execution of a simple but viral idea.

Starting point is 00:07:18 But the fact that this comes from Odeo makes me wonder, what is this company doing to make their core offering compelling? How do their shareholders feel about side projects like Twitter when their primary product line is, besides the excellent design, a total snoozer? The tech community couldn't see why audio, a podcasting platform, would dabble in something so weird. Regardless, later that year, Audio employees became so obsessed to Twitter that they racked up monthly SMS bills totaling hundreds of dollars. It seemed like Twitter was an interesting and fun toy for the employees, but nothing more.

Starting point is 00:07:54 It would take an earthquake to change all of that. In August, a small earthquake shook San Francisco and word quickly spread through Twitter. Suddenly, the whole company realized what the usefulness of the platform was. News. Twitter was a fresh form of instant news, both on a macro and personal level. It was an information network, not a social network. By fall of that year, Twitter had thousands of users. Back at Odeo, the company was splitting into two, those who worked on Twitter and those who worked on the legacy Odeo stuff.

Starting point is 00:08:40 Evan Williams, early investor in Noah's idea and now CEO of Odeo, was an interesting character. He stated that, quote, all successful business people make enemies along the way. According to Business Insider, former Odeo investors and employees use the word calculating to describe him. There are allegations that Evan Williams failed to properly compensate blogger employees when he sold the company to Google in 2003. His blogger co-founder, Meg Harriam, said, quote, I don't think he took care of the people who got him to where he was. Later in 2006, at a board meeting for Odeo,

Starting point is 00:09:27 Noah Glass presented Twitter to Odeo's directors. They couldn't care less. They didn't see what the point of it was. Then, one day in September 2006, 2006, Evan wrote a letter to Odeo's investors. In it, he told them that the company was going nowhere and he felt bad about it. Evan convinced the investors that they should cut their losses and sell all their stock back to him. They agreed, and he bought back Odeo, but this included Twitter. Five years later, assets of the company that the original Odeo investors sold for

Starting point is 00:10:01 approximately 5 million were now worth at least 1,000 times more, five years. Five years. billion. The question is, did Evan ever know that Twitter was going to be a hit? His email hints at this. In the letter to Odeo's investors, Williams wrote about Twitter, quote, By the way, Twitter, which you may have read about, is one of the pieces of value I see in Odeo, but it's too early to tell what's there. Almost two months after launch, Twitter has less than 5,000 registered users. I will continue to invest in Twitter, but it's hard to say it's justifies the venture investment Odeo certainly holds, especially since that investment was for a different market altogether. On the one hand, he may have just thought that Twitter was a

Starting point is 00:10:48 waste of time, and he felt bad about that. But on the other hand, did Evan con the investors? Surely, when the Odeo employees racked up hundreds of dollars in SMS bills, he must have seen the potential. Business Insider spoke to a few of these investors. Some are okay with it, some are jaded, others think that they were conned. Had Evan tricked them into thinking Twitter wasn't worth much when he knew that he was sitting on a gold mine? It's impossible to know what he was thinking, but one former employee who wished to remain anonymous said this.

Starting point is 00:11:21 Quote, Williams decided there was something interesting enough in Twitter that he wanted to buy all the assets and buy everyone out. What changed basically is I bought the assets of the company from the investors, and basically we wanted to pursue a different path than we were on with Odeo. The two personalities of Noah Glass and Evan Williams started to clash. Noah, who had now designed some of the core features of Twitter, wanted to stay at the helm. Very early on, Noah wanted to split Twitter off into a separate company from Odeo and become the CEO. In fact, he had already done the paperwork.

Starting point is 00:12:03 The thing was, if Evan Williams wanted to take control of the company, Twitter, he could do so at any time. Noah was nervous about Evan and confessed his fears to Jack. Jack sympathized. Are you one of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets? Yes? Good. This is for you.

Starting point is 00:12:22 Because on Spotify, there's an audience that's different. Locked in. Loyal, invested. They're called fans. Fans don't just listen to music. They feel seen by it, like it belongs to them. So when your brand shows up on Spotify, that's who you're going to. talking to, and you're right next to artists like me, Lizzo. So, are you ready to talk to fans?

Starting point is 00:12:42 Spotify advertising, you're among fans. Said that things would be okay. One day, Evan asked Noah to go with him for a walk, and it was here that Noah's worst fears were realized. Evan told Noah that he was fired. All was not as it seems, though. Jack Dorsey, who Noah bonded with and thought of as a friend, was actually the person who wanted Noah out. Jack had recently met with Evan Williams and threatened to quit if Noah wasn't let go. The reasons for why exactly has never been revealed. Unaware of what Jack had done behind his back,

Starting point is 00:13:20 Noah and Jack would meet at a bar later that night. A defeated Noah would drink late into the night. At one point, Noah told Jack that he'd been fired. Jack acted dumbfounded and blamed Evan. As the night came to a close, Noah hugged his friend and walked home. Jack soon became CEO of Twitter and Evan went to the chairman position. According to many employee and investor accounts, Twitter would not have been created without Noah Glass. Everyone was shocked at the decision.

Starting point is 00:14:02 Noah expresses how he felt. Quote, I feel betrayed by my friends, by my company, by the people around me I trusted and I worked hard to create something with. I was a little shell-shocked, so I spent a lot of time by myself and working on things alone. In any case, Evan Williams remained at the helm of one of the premier online companies, and Noah Glass's name was largely erased from the history books. It still wasn't obvious to everyone that Twitter would be a huge hit until the next year. In 2007, Twitter completely dominated the South by Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin, Texas. Twitter employees strategically placed two 60-inch plasma screens in the conference hallways,

Starting point is 00:14:53 exclusively streaming Twitter messages. Attendees used Twitter to find out what was happening at the conference. Panelists and speakers would often mention the service, which put it into the public eye. During the event, Twitter usage increased from 20,000 tweets per day to 60,000. Twitter staff received the festival's Web Award prize, All the while, Noah Glass sat in the audience filming but was never on stage. From here, Twitter began to pick up steam and became the platform to instantly know what was happening. On the 15th of January 2009, a US Airways flight crashed on New York City's Hudson River.

Starting point is 00:15:35 A photo posted on Twitter broke the news before the traditional media, highlighting Twitter's role in breaking news. In November of 2013, Twitter went public with Steve. shares being valued at $26 as the market opened and $44 when it closed. In October of 2012, Twitter bought Vine, which they released as a standalone app in January of 2013. It was hugely popular, but eventually closed down in 2016, leaving the door wide open for TikTok. The next year in 2017, Twitter would finally make a profit. Twitter currently has 3,900 employees and made $3.4 billion in revenue in 2020. A total of 1.3 billion accounts have been created with 330 million monthly active users and 145 million daily users.

Starting point is 00:16:32 22% of Americans are on Twitter and of those, 10% of users write 80% of the tweets. Interestingly, almost nobody uses Twitter in Australia where I live. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to people here. They view it as a social media platform. 83% of the world's leaders are on Twitter and journalists make up 24.6% of verified accounts. Barack Obama has the most followers, with over 111 million, followed by Katie Perry and Justin Bieber. There are 6,000 tweets every second, and a day's worth of tweets would fill a 10 million page book. Twitter is becoming useful for brands.

Starting point is 00:17:14 The last two years have seen a 250% increase in consumer service conversational. on Twitter. On the 7th of April 2020, Jack Dorsey donated $1 billion to fund COVID efforts. That's 28% of his net worth. It's a very noble move, and it does show that Jack has some good character. But I just can't help but wonder what Jack thinks of Noah's position today. What's your version of the creation? You know, there's so many, yeah, I mean, there's so many different stories that

Starting point is 00:17:47 it's not really the most important thing anymore. So would you say now I founded Twitter or we founded Twitter? It's always been we. It's always been weak. Was that frustrating to you, though, to hear other people have different versions of the Twitter creation? It's, I mean, it's not surprising. If we focus too much on that, we're not going to move forward. The past is the past.

Starting point is 00:18:09 The past is the past. Stories will be written. The situation with Noah Glass is undoubtedly sad. He got kicked out. out of the company that he helped build and betrayed by someone who he thought was his friend. Noah has slipped into obscurity and is almost nowhere to be found on the internet these days. Usually there's a lesson to be learned at the end of these episodes, but with Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams, teaming up against him, there was almost nothing that Noah could do.

Starting point is 00:18:38 Though I hope that this video does bring some recognition for his role in the foundation of Twitter. Who invented Twitter? Well, it certainly wasn't just Jack Dorsey alone. The real Genesis, I think, came from Noah Glass and Jack Dorsey. And it was one night in the car. They were drunk, and they'd been out drinking and dancing, which was a typical affair when you're in your late 20s out in San Francisco.

Starting point is 00:19:00 And Noah Glass was going through a really terrible divorce. And he and his company was failing. And he was talking to Jack. And Jack had this idea of the status updated, where you could update your status, and your friends would be able to see what you were doing. But it was very simple. It was very simplistic.

Starting point is 00:19:14 And Noah had this realization, being how lonely he was with his divorce and everything, that if you could use it to connect to people and feel quote unquote less alone, that you would actually be able to use the service in a completely different way. They accidentally built Twitter and as a result completely tore their friendships apart and some of them ended up as billionaires as we saw today and some of them ended up with actually next to nothing. So thanks for watching this video. If you do want to follow me on Twitter, I'll leave it up on the screen. If you want to see the stories of a few different social media networks. I've done one on Instagram, another one on MySpace, which was very interesting,

Starting point is 00:19:54 and one more on how Facebook has changed society. All right, so my name is DeGogo, and you've been watching Cold Fusion, and I'll see you again soon for the next episode. In the next episode, we're going to check out the hidden links between Google and the CIA. Cheers, guys. Have a good one.

ColdFusion - Scandal and Betrayal: The Story of How Twitter Started

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.