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Evan Williams on leaving Twitter
- far33d 16y agoI'm likely to be on the wrong side of this argument, but part of my gets upset every time I hear about a founder leaving their fast-growing company. Great companies are built by the kinds of founders who don't just want to start something, they want to build and scale it into something world-changing. Imagine Mark Zuckerberg leaving FB to "start something new". Imagine Bill Gates leaving MSFT early on to "experiment with some new ideas". Larry Ellison, Page and Brin, Jobs, etc all evolved with their companies. Why does it seem like this class of entrepreneurs is uninterested in seeing their companies out?
- qq66 16y agoIt's clear that there have been a lot of power struggles at Twitter. It's not clear how much of this departure is voluntary (i.e., the departure itself may be voluntary, but the conditions leading to it might have been a loss of control). Finally, great companies have been built without their founders. Cisco and Intel lost/forced out their founders relatively early.
- randall 16y agoPlus, the original "spiritual" founder, Dorsey, is back. It's not like the suits totally won or something.
- billmcneale 16y agoAs did Apple.
- subbu 16y agoBut it slumped. It had to call back Jobs to become successful.
- nhebb 16y agoI assumed he meant Woz.
- PakG1 16y agoIt didn't call back Jobs to get Jobs. It bought NeXT to be the foundation for their next OS. They chose NeXT over BeOS, and Jobs was NeXT's founder. Jobs didn't become active in Apple until later. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT
- vitohe 16y agotest
- akamaka 16y agoIntel lost or forced out its founders early?! Where did you get this from?
- qq66 16y agoFounded by Gordon Moore and Bob Noyce, led to juggernaut status by Andy Grove (employee #3)
- fuzzythinker 16y agoDifferent people, different strokes. What is wrong with that? I also wouldn't put Mark Zuckerberg in the "class" of entrepreneurs you mentioned. If anything, he is a counter example to your argument.
- donjuan 16y ago"What is wrong with that?" Umm.... Different folks, different strokes.
- jbrennan 16y agoCould you expand on why Mark Zuckerberg is not in the same "class" as the others? I'm not sure what makes him so different in the example, other than Facebook is not yet so old as the other companies.
- rewind 16y agoAlmost all (if not all) entrepreneurs thrive on the creation process, but not all thrive on the nurturing part once a company reaches a certain level. Sometimes, the creative process just isn't a big enough part of the process anymore when the day-to-day stuff starts to take over a bigger part of a founder's time. Better to leave openly than to stay and not really have your heart in it. These types of people don't have the DNA to run big companies long-term. But it's always interesting to see where they go next.
- nettdata 16y agoMaybe they leave because they don't have the skill sets or experience to do so? It's one thing to get something going and make it successful, it's totally something else to make it huge and successful.
- j_baker 16y agoWhy does this make you upset? I've noticed that few people can be both a "starter" and a "maintainer". And even fewer actually enjoy it. There's a reason why only the really big names stay on for so long. The people who start the company usually get bored when it comes time to go into stabilization mode. The people who maintain the company once it has stabilized usually don't like the uncertainty that comes with building a new idea. In short, I don't think there's any reason to lament the new way of doing things. It's better for the company and it's better for the founders.
- peter78 16y agoActually I think it's usually the case where a company is founded by 2 or 3 really passionate people. Typically, there's one who's passion stays with the company for the test of times. With Microsoft, it was Bill Gates with Paul Allen leaving. With Apple, it was Steve Jobs with Wozniak no longer there. With Twitter, it Dorsey staying (after having been pushed out) with Evan leaving.
- prawn 16y agoI don't really find it upsetting, more so exciting to see what they do next and whether they can hit another home run.
- peter78 16y agoBecause ~99% of internet companies seem to either fail or be acquired, it's the nature of the beast. Only a handful of companies (like you mentioned Oracle, Google, Apple, Amazon) live long enough for a founder to even stay there.
- rudiger 16y agoThe person who starts a company may not be the best person to lead it when it's worth billions. I admire people like Craig Newmark of Craigslist for stepping out of the way, and people like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook for continuing to lead.
- demallien 16y agoActually, no, Jobs didn't stay with Apple. I suspect that episode could teach us a lot about what happened at Twitter.
- marcamillion 16y agoThis is why I love this industry. This guy has created two groundbreaking/historic companies in a decade and now he is stepping up to bat for #3. I don't know if he will succeed on the next one, or even on the one after that - but I do know that I wouldn't bet against him. Love/Hate Twitter, have to respect @ev for his contribution to communication, the development of Rails and the evolution of the industry. Look forward to seeing what comes next.
- aditya 16y agoThe development of Rails?
- marcamillion 16y agoWell...Twitter was at the forefront of pushing the boundaries of Rails in it's early days. Testing it's stability and scalability. Sure, it might not have been @ev specifically, but Twitter sure did. Hence @ev did.
- mrduncan 16y agoWhile Ev certainly deserves plenty of credit for Twitter's success, I think you're giving him a little too much in this case. Twitter actually started out as a Rails project because Florian Weber (who worked at Odeo with Jack on the initial implementation) was a member of the Rails Core team. Jack was originally going to develop it in Python, C, and Ocaml. I don't believe that Ev ever had anything to do with the decision to use Rails. https://twitter.com/#!/jack/status/47090747706580992 https://twitter.com/#!/jack/status/47090747706580992
- PanMan 16y agoIt seems the folks at twitter want to give @jack a bigger role, especially with @ev gone. However, I wonder if he doesn't want to focus on Square, which seems to be doing great things on it's own.
- citricsquid 16y agohttp://obviouscorp.com/ http://obviouscorp.com/ what happened to their site?
- aditya 16y agohttp://obvious.com/ http://obvious.com/
- cobrien 16y agoWrong domain -- it's http://www.obvious.com http://www.obvious.com (and still around)
- citricsquid 16y agoAh. Seems he didn't update this post then: http://evhead.com/2006/10/birth-of-obvious-corp_25.asp http://evhead.com/2006/10/birth-of-obvious-corp_25.asp as it links to obviouscorp.com
- revorad 16y agoNext up: YC gets a new partner... :-P
- geoffw8 16y agoBest of luck to Ev. Very impressive, not only growing the businesses, but knowing when to leave at the right moment.
- staunch 16y agoBlogger supported 1400 characters. Twitter supported 140 characters. –––––er will support 14 characters. Can't wait for the release!
- mixmax 16y agoOld hat - I already did that. Launched right here on Hacker news almost a year ago. Actually on April 1. http://twittewittewit.com/ http://twittewittewit.com/
- citricsquid 16y agoshrtr?
- barrydahlberg 16y agoshtr?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- beedogs 16y agosharter?
- Jgrubb 16y agoMy kind of HNer.
- weego 16y agoI'll hold out for shtnr... you get 12 characters, but every post must contain the words my, God and Spock.
- portman 16y agoWe made Squeaker about 18 months ago. Must be exactly 14 characters! http://squeakertime.com http://squeakertime.com
- gromy 16y agoAny bets on what Ev will work on next?
- gromy 16y agoA couple years ago Ev wished there was a better calendar to-do list integration out there.
- eelco 16y agoThat was about three years ago, see http://www.economist.com/node/10328123 http://www.economist.com/node/10328123
- troymc 16y agoA web application which will combine a project manager, contact manager, and to-do list. It won't be named Pyra.
- wyclif 16y agoA photo-sharing app that gets $50M+ in VC and spends 500K on their primary domain.
- dmoney 16y agoMegablogging. No post can have fewer than 140,000 characters.
- nikcub 16y agoNo idea what it will be when he starts it, it almost doesn't matter - but by the time he is done it will probably be awesome. Guys like Ev just need to start with something, they are adaptable enough to find what works. Put him in a room with a dozen people, $5M and let it simmer for a few years.
- webwright 16y agoWhat an amazing position to be in. Most people have to struggle to raise money and attract talent. How big do you think the line is to fund and/or work at Ev's next venture? G'luck, Ev!
- ignifero 16y agoIt's Obvious that his next step has something to do with Obvious Inc. Maybe something that will remove everything that is obvious from the web
- ohkine 16y ago> After stepping down from CEO six months ago, my mind started to wander. The reason I left Blogger/Google when I did is that I felt it had reached a place where it was on solid ground and in capable hands (at the time, Jason Goldman’s as product manager). Though still an independent company, I realized Twitter may be at a similar point today. Do people really mean it when they say this, or is it just a thing to say, the same way disgraced politicians claim that they're retiring to 'spend time with their family'? I mean, i'm not suggesting that there's anything untoward going on, it's just that with a few rare exceptions i find it hard to believe when people (politicians, CEOs, message-board founders, or anyone else) claim that they've left because they looked around and, like the Old Testament God, saw that 'it was good', and decided that their job was done there. I have not ever been a CEO or anything obviously, but the concept seems unlikely to me. 'I'm tired of my responsibilities', 'the culture has changed too much', 'i don't like my co-workers', 'i've got a more lucrative opportunity lined up elsewhere', 'i want to raise my new child', whatever, i'd easily believe those. But that it's so charitable and grandiose as deciding 'it's done' seems foreign to me.
- jerf 16y agoThe term "serial entrepreneur" is in common use around here and definitely describes a certain class of people. While you may be right, this is one case where you may be wrong. Unlike politicians leaving to "spend more time with family".
- vessenes 16y ago>deciding 'it's done' seems foreign to me. Agreed. On the other hand, you can never say in a press release, "I'm bored, I don't like managing a company this size, and the politics are sucking all the life out of me." Corporate inertia is real; I think it's easy to imagine a twice-successful youngish entrepreneur wanting to try again, fix the old mistakes and get back to working with a small team of scrappy folks. Especially when you don't need the money any more; without the 'have-to-make-it' stress, startup life can be pretty fun. A lot more fun than dealing with board-level powerplays, at least for a product-type person.
- niketdesai 16y agoIt's pretty amazing to be part of two incredibly successful companies. If anything this is simply proof that you can get it done. I'm sure it's tough to maintain control when companies become (or are acquired into) behemoths. I can't imagine all of the emotional turmoil being successful in entrepreneurial adventures can be in comparison to failure, quite frankly. He can walk away knowing that he was at the VERY least part of game changing contributions to the world. And that's pretty neat no matter what he decides to do next. And they say...3rd time is the charm.
- d2 16y agoIt's been 5 years and 8 days since work on Twitter started on March 21, 2006. Several other founding employees will be fully vested by now, so I'd expect a few more departures, particularly now that Ev has made it OK to leave.
- rabble 16y agoI think there are only three people left of the founding team who are employees, @biz, @crystal (support), and @jeremy (ops). The oldest dev is @bs, but very early on, but wasn't around when twitter was created. Twitter's not the company it was 5 years ago. People move on. It's ok.
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- kmfrk 16y agoTwitter looks more like a company and less than a start-up for every day that passes.