
For Twitter C.E.O., Well-Orchestrated Accidents  - peter123
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/jobs/08bosses.html
======
bluefish
The thing that's interesting to me is both Blogger and Twitter focus on
simple, straight-forward human to human communication. Neither are complex or
try to solve abstract, confusing problems.

By the measure of Blogger and Twitter's popularity, Evan is obviously
skillful, regardless of whether or not Twitter is purchased by Google or some
other entity. He focuses on an area relevant to all humans, communication. He
makes his services easy for everyone to use. He has the foresight to see
potential value in something unexplored, and he has the tenacity to work
problems long enough for the results to prove if his hunches are right.

But perhaps most important he tries over and over, failing more often than he
succeeds. That seems to be the real lesson here, it's not that Evan just
luckily makes some mistakes and comes out on top, it's that he tries over and
over.

Success has very little to do with luck, a bit more to do with circumstance
and mostly to do with trying, and trying and trying some more.

~~~
kragen
Also, knowing how to deal with people, focus, and discipline.

------
physcab
Is it just me or did this article seem underwhelming? Twitter has gotten some
incredible publicity lately, so much so that my _mom_ asked me what Twitter
was.

So perhaps that is why the Times asked Evan Williams write a sort of
autobiography. But nothing was really all that meaningful.

He could have talked about why he believed giving investors their money back
was the right decision. He could have talked about why Twitter was worth
investing more time in. He could have even talked about what he learned from
his previous failures.

Evan Williams doesn't sound like that interesting of a person, but props to
him for developing one of the next big things in online communication.

~~~
breck
I actually thought this was one of the best articles I've read in a while.

A lot of entrepreneurs I know try and try again and always come up
short(myself included, though the success rate has steadily improved). This
can be really discouraging because after a few attempts you start to wonder if
you have the right characteristics necessary to create a successful startup.
It's not like basketball where if you're 5'8" you can quickly figure out
you're not going pro and can move on to other things. So in this story you've
got a guy who "was broke for 10 years", made a ton of mistakes, then went on
to start 2 really really successful companies.

I thought that's really inspiring and I'm glad he shared.

------
drawkbox
The one thing that is very interesting about Evan Williams is the ability to
pull off TWO possible companies that were Google aquire capable. Blogger he
already sold. Twitter he may.

Another way to look at it is, Twitter may have been already acquired by Google
had not Evan Williams already had one company bought by Google. This may have
stopped it from getting to the point it is now judging by some companies
success after that event.

One major success is probably lucky, TWO is probably skill, or else a complete
craziness by consumers. But what it is looking like is Evan Williams has
created 2 successful companies in one bubble and coming out the end of the
bubble it appears twitter might have some of the best value built in.

~~~
axod
This is the same Google that labelled Twitter "Poor mans email"?

~~~
marketer
Yeah, after reading that article and watching Schmidt on Charlie Rose, I feel
that he's a little out of touch with technology. His idea of monetizing
youtube involves micropayments of a few cents per view, and his idea of the
'next thing at google' is some weird wikipedia mashup on mobile phones.

~~~
whatusername
After seeing that headline (I'll admit I skipped the article) - I figured that
Google was either making a play for twitter behind the scenes - or had been
rebuffed by them.

Also - he technically has this: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaiku>

------
jgilliam
Ev admits he has a hard time staying focused, so it makes total sense that he
built two of the biggest attention suckers of the last decade while he was
supposed to be working on something else. Makes total sense.

~~~
tonystubblebine
I think when Ev said that he was either being self-deprecating, or judging
himself against his own lofty ambitions, or both. I've worked for him and
would actually characterize him as extremely focused.

Blogger was close to the brink and only survived because of his dedication. I
think Twitter is another example of him getting more focused over time.

Maybe he's not overly engaged by mediocre opportunities, but that's a long way
from saying he isn't able to focus.

I just wanted to point this out in case there were any potential founders who
thought their ADD was an asset.

~~~
kragen
He said he lacked focus when he was talking about his career before 1997, not
at present. When did you work for him?

~~~
tonystubblebine
2005-06 at Odeo.

~~~
kragen
Maybe this is kind of the point you were making, but I think it's very likely
that Ev wasn't trying to claim he "lacked focus" during the Odeo epoch, with
or without false humility. It sounded like he was contrasting the more recent
part of his career with the earlier period in which he lacked focus,
discipline, and people skills.

I first met him in 2001, at Blogger's low point, so I don't know what he was
like four years earlier.

~~~
tonystubblebine
You're right, he only said that the first company (pre-Pyra) was unfocused.

I filled in the rest based on the comment above and on memories of people
calling Odeo unfocused. I just wanted to kill any notion that Ev's successes
come from being unfocused. Really, it was Ev's focus, keeping us from getting
tied down by biz dev deals and refusing to settle for a middling success even
when we got positive feedback, that set the groundwork for Twitter.

------
spitfire
"Right now, anything we would do to make money would take our time away from
acquiring more users. "

We'll lose money on each unit sold, but make it up on volume!!

What I fail to see, is how twitter won't be replaced by some open source
library that does the same thing. Just as you can install blogging software on
your own server and use aggregators to aggregate.

But they're the current dotcom darling, so they can do no wrong.

~~~
cake
I am surprised that he says he is still focused on having more users.

Twitter already has, in my opinion, a quite large (mostly techie) user base,
the numerous whales would approve.

Figuring out how to make money out of it would be nice for them now, probably
with advertisement tweets.

~~~
jfarmer
They're looking for mainstream adoption, which, IMO, it is on the brink of
achieving.

------
ojbyrne
"I grew up on a farm in Nebraska, where we grew mostly corn and soybeans." is
the best opening line ever. So redundant.

~~~
jedc
Not redundant; there are lots of things you can grow on a farm in Nebraska.
(As a kid I grew up on a farm.)

But it is a fun opening line.

~~~
ojbyrne
I recently read "The Omnivore's Dilemma" which describes how the economics of
subsidies available to farmers mean that corn and soybeans are crowding out
every other crop. It was talking about Iowa mostly but I assume that the same
economics apply to Nebraska.

------
hardik
Now I know Mr.NNT has been given his due attention on this site several times
already but I can't help thinking (and commenting).. Black Swans!

