Twitter, Medium and Blogger: Ev Williams
Ev Williams, founder of Blogger and Medium and co-founder of Twitter, recounts his journey from a Nebraska farm boy to a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, detailing the creation of Pyra Labs, the pivot to Blogger, and the accidental birth of Twitter from the failed podcasting company Odeo. He explains how Twitter’s real-time SMS-based status updates gained traction at South by Southwest, leading to rapid growth and his eventual tenure as CEO, which ended in his ouster due to poor conflict management and scaling challenges. After being fired, Williams returned to his roots by founding Medium, a platform designed for longer-form writing with social connectivity, applying lessons learned about simplicity and user experience from his previous ventures.