Evan Williams (Internet entrepreneur)

Evan Clark Williams (born 31 March 1972) is an American technology entrepreneur who is the co-founder of several technology companies, most importantly Twitter. Williams was previously chairman and CEO of Twitter. He also founded Blogger and Medium, two of the largest and most notable internet platforms.

Evan Williams
Williams in 2014 at Obvious Ventures
Born	(1972-03-31) 31 March 1972 Clarks, Nebraska, United States
Nationality	American
Citizenship	United States
Occupation	Internet Entrepreneur
Years active	1993–present
Known for	Blogger Twitter Medium
Net worth	US$2.5 billion (September 2018)[1]
Board member of	Twitter[2]
Spouse(s)	Sara Morishige Williams (Wife)
Parent(s)	Monte Williams (Father) Laurie Howe William (Mother)

Early life and education

Williams was born in Clarks, Nebraska, as the third child of Laurie Howe and Monte Williams.[3] He grew up on a farm in Clarks, where he assisted with crop irrigation during the summers. He attended the University of Nebraska–Lincoln for a year and a half, where he joined FarmHouse fraternity, leaving to pursue his career.[4][5][6]

Career

Early career

After leaving college, Williams worked at various technology jobs and start-up firms in Florida, at Key West, and in Texas, at Dallas and Austin, before returning to his family farm in Nebraska. In 1996 Williams moved to Sebastopol, California in Sonoma County to work for the technology publishing company O'Reilly Media. He started at O'Reilly in a marketing position, later becoming an independent contractor writing computer code, which led to freelance opportunities with companies including Intel and Hewlett-Packard.[5] While he was working at O'Reilly, he also started a website called EvHead.com, where he first began blogging about his personal thoughts.[7]

Pyra Labs and Blogger

Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan co-founded Pyra Labs to make project management software. A note-taking feature spun off as Blogger, one of the first web applications for creating and managing weblogs.[8] Williams coined the term "blogger" and was instrumental in the popularization of the term "blog".[9] Pyra survived the departure of Hourihan and other employees, and later, was acquired by Google on 13 February 2003.[10]

In 2003, Williams was named to the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35.[11] In 2004, he was named one of PC Magazine's "People of the Year", along with Hourihan and Paul Bausch, for their work on Blogger.[12]

Odeo and Obvious Corporation

Williams officially left Google on 8 October 2004,[13] to co-found Odeo, a podcast company.[14] In late 2006, Williams co-founded Obvious Corporation with Biz Stone and other former Odeo employees, to acquire all previous properties from Odeo's former backers.[15] In April 2007, Odeo was acquired by Sonic Mountain.[16]

Twitter

Among Obvious Corporation's projects was Twitter, a popular, free social networking and micro-blogging service. Twitter was spun out as a new company in April 2007, with Williams as co-founder, board member, and investor.[17] In October 2008, Williams became CEO of Twitter, succeeding Jack Dorsey, who became chairman of the board.[18]

By February 2009, Compete.com ranked Twitter the third most-used social network, based on their count of 6 million unique monthly visitors and 55 million monthly visits.[19] As of February 2013, Twitter had 200 million registered users.[20] It gets 300,000 new users a day and, as of August 2015, was ranked twelfth in the world. It receives more than 300 million unique visitors and more than five billion people in traffic a month. 75% of its traffic comes from outside of Twitter.com.

In October 2010, Williams stepped down from the CEO position, explaining that he would be "completely focused on product strategy," and appointed Dick Costolo as his replacement.[21]

Following the announcement of Twitter's initial public offering (IPO) in 2013, the company was valued at between US$14 billion and US$20 billion.

On 6 April 2017, an article announced Williams would sell 30 percent of his stock in Twitter, for "personal reasons."[22]

In February 2019, Williams stepped down from his role as a board member for Twitter.[23]

Medium

On 25 September 2012, Williams created a publishing platform, Medium (at Medium.com). Initially, it was available only to early adopters, but was opened to the public in 2013.[24]

On 5 April 2013, Williams and Stone announced that they would be unwinding Obvious Corporation as they focused on individual startups.[25]

XOXO Festival presentation

Williams presented at the 2013 XOXO Festival in Portland, Oregon, and explained his understanding of Internet commerce.[26] During his XOXO session, Williams also likened the Internet to "a lot of other major technological revolutions that have taken place in the history of the world," such as agriculture, and asserted that the Internet is not a utopia.[26]

Personal life

Williams is a vegetarian.[5] Along with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, Willams has invested — though the Obvious Corporations — in plant-based meat alternative, Beyond Meat.[27] He lives in the San Francisco area with his wife, Sara, with whom he has two children.[28][29] Williams has been quoted as having a philosophy that it is important to conserve time, do fewer things, and to avoid distractions.[30]

Future business plans

After President Trump credited his election to the use of Twitter, Evan Williams stated that if true, he was sorry, and he was concerned that the Internet platform rewarded extremes. Williams told the Associated Press that he was wrong to think that an open platform where people could speak freely would make the world a better place.[31] His musings about future business objectives include considerations about the effect of the Internet upon society.[32]

References

1. "Evan Williams". Forbes. Retrieved 18 May 2018..
2. "Board of directors - About". Archived from the original on 14 October 2016. Retrieved 21 July 2016.
3. writer, Cole Epley / World-Herald staff. "Twitter co-founder Evan The success of Williams doesn't surprise those who knew him growing up in Nebraska". Retrieved 21 July 2016.
4. Williams, Evan (7 March 2009). "For Twitter C.E.O., Well-Orchestrated Accidents". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
5. Malone, Michael S. (18 April 2009). "The Twitter Revolution". The Wall Street Journal. p. A11. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
6. "Twitter exec, Nebraska native Evan Williams at UNL 10 April". University of Nebraska–Lincoln. 10 April 2009.
7. "Ev Williams: Never underestimate your first idea | Masters of Scale podcast". WaitWhat. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
8. McKinnon, Matthew (2001). "King of the blogs". MatthewMckinnon.ca. Retrieved 18 June 2011.
9. Baker, John (20 April 2008). "Origins of "Blog" and "Blogger"". American Dialect Society Mailing List (Mailing list). Archived from the original on 21 February 2009. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
10. Gillmor, Dan (15 February 2003). "Google Buys Pyra: Blogging Goes Big-Time". SiliconValley.com. Archived from the original on 24 March 2003. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
11. "2003 Young Innovators Under 35: Evan Williams, 31". Technology Review. 2003. Retrieved 14 August 2011.
12. "People of the Year". PC Magazine. 22 December 2004. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
13. Festa, Paul (5 October 2004). "Blogger founder leaves Google". CNET. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
14. Carson, Nicholas (13 April 2011). "The real history of Twitter", Business Insider
15. Malik, Om (25 October 2006). "Odeo RIP, Hello Obvious Corp". GigaOm. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
16. Marshall, Matt (10 May 2007). "SonicMountain acquires podcasting company Odeo, reportedly for more than $1M". VentureBeat. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
17. Williams, Evan (16 April 2007). "Twitter, Inc". Obviously. Obvious Corp. Archived from the original on 29 July 2009. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
18. McCarthy, Caroline (16 October 2008). "Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey steps down". CNET. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
19. Kazeniac, Andy (9 February 2009). "Social Networks: Facebook Takes Over Top Spot, Twitter Climbs". Compete.com. Archived from the original on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
20. "Celebrating #Twitter7 - Twitter Blogs". Twitter. Retrieved 6 December 2013.
21. MG Siegler (4 October 2010). "Dick Costolo Takes Twitter CEO Role So Evan Williams Can Focus on Product". TechCrunch. AOL Inc. Retrieved 8 November 2013.
22. "Twitter co-founder Ev Williams is selling 30 percent of his stock for 'personal' reasons". Recode. Retrieved 4 July 2018.
23. Gourani, Soulaima. "Why Board Members Decide To Step Down". Forbes. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
24. "Twitter Co-Founders' New Site, Medium, Will Open to Public in New Year". All Things D. Retrieved 25 September 2012.
25. "The Obvious Corp. Takes Backseat As Ev Williams, Biz Stone, And Jason Goldman Shift Focus To Individual Startups". TechCrunch. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
26. Ryan Tate (1 October 2013). "Twitter founder reveals secret formula for getting rich online". Wired.co.uk. Condé Nast UK. Retrieved 5 October 2013.
27. Ariel Schwartz (12 June 2012). "Biz Stone Explains Why Twitter's Co-Founders Are Betting Big On A Vegan Meat Startup". FastCompany. Retrieved 16 July 2020.
28. Ryan Mac (3 October 2013). "Twitter Cofounder Evan Williams A Billionaire After 12% Stake in Company Is Revealed". Forbes.com. Forbes.com LLC™. Retrieved 8 November 2013.
29. "Twitter co-founder Evan Williams sells Noe Valley home". Yahoo! Homes. Yahoo - Zillow Real Estate Network. 22 August 2013. Archived from the original on 26 August 2013. Retrieved 8 November 2013.
30. Issie Lapowsky (2 February 2013). "Evan Williams's Rule for Success: Do Less". Inc. Retrieved 26 June 2018.
31. Press, Associated. "Twitter leader says he's 'sorry' for social media role in Trump's election". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 21 May 2017.
32. Streitfeld, David, Internet Is Broken': @ev Is Trying to Salvage It, New York Times, 20 May 2017

External links

• Evan Williams @ Medium
• Evan Williams on Twitter

Business positions
Preceded by Jack Dorsey	Twitter CEO 2008–2010	Succeeded by Dick Costolo