Hatching Twitter
<b>The dramatic, unlikely story behind the founding of Twitter, by <i>New York Times </i>bestselling author and <i>Vanity Fair </i>special correspondent<br></b><br> The San Francisco-based technology company Twitter has become a powerful force in less than ten years. Today it’s everything from a tool for fighting political oppression in the Middle East to a marketing must-have to the world’s living room during live TV events to President Trump’s preferred method of communication. It has hundreds of millions of active users all over the world. <br> But few people know that it nearly fell to pieces early on. <br><br> In this rousing history that reads like a novel, <i>Hatching Twitter </i>takes readers behind the scenes of Twitter’s early exponential growth, following the four hackers—Ev Williams, Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass, who created the cultural juggernaut practically by accident. It’s a drama of betrayed friendships and high-stakes power struggles over money, influence, and control over a company that was growing faster than they could ever imagine. <br><br> Drawing on hundreds of sources, documents, and internal e-mails, Bilton offers a rarely-seen glimpse of the inner workings of technology startups, venture capital, and Silicon Valley culture.
The Podcast Pivot
The story begins at Odeo, a podcasting startup founded by Evan Williams and Noah Glass. When Apple integrated podcasting into iTunes, Odeo faced certain death. In a desperate bid for survival, the team held hackathons to brainstorm new directions. Amidst this creative chaos, a quiet engineer named Jack Dorsey and the passionate, often overlooked Noah Glass began discussing a simple way to broadcast status updates via SMS. This small, experimental side project, initially dismissed by many as a frivolous distraction, would eventually become the foundation for a global communication revolution known as Twitter and change the tech landscape forever.
The Birth of Twttr
Jack Dorsey envisioned a platform for sharing what people were doing at any given moment. Noah Glass, obsessed with the concept of connection, became its loudest champion, even coming up with the name twttr. While Evan Williams provided the funding and the office space, he remained skeptical of the service's utility. Despite the internal doubt, the group built a prototype that resonated with their small circle of early adopters. The project officially launched in 2006, characterized by its 140-character limit and a chaotic, punk-rock energy that defied the standard business logic of Silicon Valley at the time.
The Silent Purge
As Twitter gained traction, internal power struggles intensified. Despite being the primary emotional driver behind the project, Noah Glass was abruptly fired. The narrative reveals that Jack Dorsey, seeking more control and recognition, quietly urged Evan Williams to remove Glass. This betrayal set a precedent for the company’s future, where personal relationships were frequently sacrificed for professional positioning. Noah was scrubbed from the official history books, leaving Jack and Ev as the perceived co-founders. This early act of backstabbing established a culture of distrust and hidden agendas that would haunt the executive team for many years to come.
Riding the Fail Whale
Twitter exploded in popularity at the South by Southwest festival, but its infrastructure was ill-prepared for the influx of users. The Fail Whale illustration, appearing whenever the site crashed, became a symbol of the platform's fragility. Behind the scenes, the engineering team struggled with a codebase that was never meant to scale globally. As the world began to use Twitter for everything from celebrity gossip to political revolutions, the internal team was perpetually in crisis mode. The technical debt grew alongside the user base, creating a high-stress environment where the founders clashed over how to best stabilize the service.
The Celebrity CEO
Jack Dorsey assumed the CEO role but found himself more interested in the perks of fame than the rigors of management. He spent his days attending fashion shows, taking yoga classes, and cultivating a persona as a visionary genius. This lack of focus led to stagnating product development and recurring technical failures. Evan Williams, watching from the board, became increasingly frustrated by Jack’s perceived incompetence and lack of communication. The tension reached a breaking point, leading to a boardroom revolt where Ev ousted Jack from the top spot. Jack was relegated to a silent role, harboring deep resentment and planning his return.
Ev Takes the Reins
Under Evan Williams' leadership, Twitter moved toward professionalization and global expansion. Ev focused on making the platform a reliable source for real-time news and information, steering it away from Jack's status update vision. He dealt with the complexities of monetizing the platform and managing a rapidly growing workforce. However, Ev’s slow decision-making process and his insistence on perfect consensus often frustrated the board and the employees. Despite the platform’s massive cultural impact and its role in events like the Arab Spring, the company’s internal morale began to fracture under the weight of his cautious management style.
The Third Founder
Dick Costolo, a former comedian and successful entrepreneur, joined the company to bring operational discipline. Initially hired as COO, he quickly became the bridge between the warring factions of the board and the founders. Costolo focused on building a revenue model through advertising, something the company had long avoided. As the relationship between Ev and the board soured, Costolo emerged as the logical choice for a leadership change. His arrival marked the transition of Twitter from a volatile startup into a serious media corporation, though the shadow of the founders' lingering animosity continued to loom large over the office.
The Return of Jack
While Ev struggled as CEO, Jack Dorsey was busy reinventing his image. He transformed from a bohemian engineer into a polished executive, drawing inspiration from Steve Jobs. Jack maintained close ties with key board members and investors, whispering about Ev's failures while positioning himself as the rightful heir to the Twitter legacy. He utilized the media to rewrite his role in the company’s origin story, emphasizing his visionary status. Eventually, the board decided that Ev's time was up. In a mirror image of his own previous ousting, Ev was forced out, clearing the way for Jack’s triumphant return.
The IPO and the Aftermath
With Jack Dorsey back as executive chairman and Dick Costolo as CEO, Twitter prepared for its massive initial public offering. The IPO was a financial triumph, making the founders and early investors billionaires. However, the success was bittersweet. The process revealed the deep scars left by years of betrayal, lawsuits, and public feuds. The narrative exposes how the official story of Twitter's creation was a carefully crafted myth that ignored the vital contributions of people like Noah Glass. The wealth generated by the IPO could not mend the broken friendships or the bitter rivalries that defined the company's internal history.
A Legacy of Chaos
The book concludes by reflecting on the permanent transformation of communication and the heavy human cost of that change. Twitter evolved from a simple SMS experiment into a tool that could topple governments and shape global discourse. Yet, the story of its creation remains a cautionary tale of Silicon Valley greed and ego. The four main characters—Ev, Jack, Biz, and Noah—ended up in vastly different places, forever linked by a product they built together but could rarely agree on. The hatching of Twitter was not a clean birth but a messy, high-stakes drama that forever altered lives.