Twitter, created by Jack Dorsey, Christopher Isaac, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams, was founded by three entrepreneurs who met at a crossroad in their lives. They were working for a new Internet company called Blogger, which eventually sold to Google. Williams and Stone then started their own company, Obvious Corporation, which focused on audio and podcasting. In 2006, Dorsey and several audio employees formed Obvious Corporation, which was later acquired by Sonic Mountain.
Twitter was launched as Dorsey’s own company in April 2007, with Dorsey as CEO. The company faced criticism for lack of a business model but focused on improving the service rather than turning a profit. By February 2009, Twitter had become the third most used online social network with over 55,000,000 monthly visits. The founders chose collaboration over competition, promoting open information exchange and instilling a culture throughout the company.
Twitter also worked with industry heavy hitters when it came under attack from hackers early on. The cofounders believe that collaborating with the competition will help everyone out and that there is a healthy friendly competition that can be beneficial. They encourage others to learn from Twitter’s success and to continue working for the company.
The top three lessons that can be learned from Twitter’s success are:
1. Choose collaboration over competition: Collaboration can lead to opportunities for growth and innovation.
2. Keep an open mind to collaborating with competitors: Collaboration can help promote open information exchange and foster a healthy ecosystem.
3. Make it fun: Collaboration can be fun and beneficial, as seen with companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi. By following the example of Twitter, entrepreneurs can learn valuable lessons from their success and contribute to their own businesses.
The cofounders of Twitter approached their company differently than most, not knowing how they would make a profit or who would use it. They found it funny that some of the words accrued have made it into the official dictionary.
Twitter started because they were not as passionate about the podcasting service as they should have been. They wanted to create a culture that embodied their values and stood out from the competition. The Twitter office was designed to cultivate an open and fun work environment, with brick walls, high ceilings, and no cubicles. Employees worked side-by-side at their stations on modern furniture, and breakfast was catered with everything from soy yogurt to fresh strawberries. Lunch was also catered for employees, including soup, salads, and sandwiches. On Thursdays, Twitter headquarters hosts a special day where a guest speaker joins them for lunch, encouraging employees to tweet about the lunch as it happens.
The founders placed a heavy emphasis on making sure their employees were accompanied by people they wanted to go to work for everyday. They genuinely wanted to innovate, not just from a product or technology standpoint, but from a company standpoint. Focusing on culture is crucial to build social responsibility and the idea of a company as a super Organism.
To finish up, the video shares true stories about the Twitter guys and some inspirational quotes. Twitter has been used by everyday people to report incidents around the world, and the founders never thought technological innovation would become a major way of reporting instant news stories. After brainstorming, they came up with the name Twitter, which also called the process of delivering real-time information, sending a tweet, or tweeting. The inside joke is that these made-up words that they thought were funny ways to describe their invention would become actual English words found in the dictionary.
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