BackExtract | Hatching Twitter
A new book on the genesis of the social networking site Twitter reads like a soap opera
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Twitter tell-all
The official origin stories of most technology start-ups seem to be filled with eureka moments, but the reality is usually a lot messier. Journalist Nick Bilton, in his book Hatching Twitter, gives us a peek into the rough deals and crazy ideas that led to the birth of the social network. While everyone would have expected some complications, the tensions between the various founders of Twitter are an eye-opener. An edited excerpt:
It was late in the afternoon when Jack and Ev walked up the stairs to the conference room that had been nicknamed Odeo Heights. Their feet moved in sync, like two programmed robots, stair by stair, upward to the second floor. They opened the door to the dinky meeting room, pulled back the chairs across from each other, and sat, hands clasped.
Jeremy watched them ascend the staircase as they had done a hundred times before. As did Blaine. And a few others in the office too. But no one paid them much attention. Just a normal meeting between the CEO and chairman of the company. They had no idea—until much later, at least—that Jack would walk up those stairs as one person and walk down as somebody completely different. Two different Jack Dorseys.
Things often don’t break; they bend. Relationships rarely just splinter apart; they slowly start to bow, curving in another direction, distorting, and eventually separating. The relationship between Ev and Jack had been doing just that for some time, bowing like wet wood, moving between good and bad, but right now, as they shuffled into their seats in the conference room, it was about to break in two forever.
Ev immediately dropped the gauntlet. “You can either be a dressmaker or the CEO of Twitter," Ev said. “But you can’t be both."
Although Jack worked hard, coming into the office well before anyone else arrived, he often left at around 6pm to attend to one of his extracurricular activities. For a while he had taken drawing classes, sketching nudes in his notepad. He attended hot yoga classes, rushing off after work to contort his body into downward dog and sweat out the stresses of the day. He had also been taking classes at a local fashion school to learn how to sew, still contemplating a future career in fashion. He loved sewing and enthusiastically set out to learn how to make an A-line skirt for his first class assignment. The eventual goal was to make his own pair of dark jeans, maybe even end up working for his favourite jeans maker one day, Earnest Sewn in New York City.
Jack’s social life had also grown exponentially, just as Twitter had. People had started to invite him to parties, lots of parties. He was taken to baseball games by affluent bigwigs like Ron Conway. Girls were paying attention to him, including one, a twentysomething blonde named Justine, who had gained a reputation in tech for dating several well-known start-up founders.
Jack was also feeling his first glimpse of fame as a Z-list celebrity in San Francisco, being written about in the media in Twitter-related articles and blog posts. For the first time in his life, the invisible boy from St. Louis was being recognized by tech enthusiasts at local coffee shops who showered him with their love of Twitter (when it worked). People who used Twitter were also starting to be given ranking based on the number of followers they had on the site. And who better to be the king of the nerds than user number one: Jack Dorsey.
But there was one person who was not Jack’s biggest fan: Ev. He believed Jack didn’t work hard enough. Wasn’t in the office enough. Was distracted by his hobbies. Was too lackadaisical with his management style. Was . . . was . . . was. When Ev was in the office, he demanded quiet. Jokes and chatter among coworkers were often met with a long “Shhhhhhhhh!" from Ev.
Biz, the always-on jokester, often laughed off the shushing, but Jack took such requests personally.
Jack had been trying to befriend his employees, organizing movie nights and dinners on a regular basis. He had also started a new ritual called Tea Time: a weekly event for Twitter staff that was held on a Friday afternoon to discuss the company’s latest news. Although people were supposed to drink tea at the discussion, they instead showed up with beer and other spirits. But Ev didn’t care about Tea Time or movie nights. He was concerned with the company. A company that was in trouble. The continual site outages had started to take their toll on Twitter. For a few weeks sign-ups had started to slow slightly, and Ev had sent e-mails sounding alarms. “You leave the office too early," Ev said. “You go off to your dressmaking classes and yoga, and to socialize, and we have all these problems with the site and growth is slowing." Ev went on listing Jack’s flaws. Jack was furious but didn’t respond. He didn’t know how to respond. He didn’t know if he could respond. Could a CEO argue with a chairman?
Excerpted with permission from Hodder & Stoughton/Hachette India.
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