1 00:00:03,030 --> 00:00:06,089 So, just random contract jobs until 2 00:00:06,090 --> 00:00:10,954 I discovered this company called Odeo, which was run by Evan Williams. 3 00:00:11,130 --> 00:00:14,049 Biz Stone was joining in a few months. 4 00:00:14,460 --> 00:00:18,049 It was a consumer podcasting company. 5 00:00:18,340 --> 00:00:20,939 I had never written a resume before. 6 00:00:21,300 --> 00:00:24,689 I had no interest in podcasting whatsoever. 7 00:00:24,690 --> 00:00:28,759 But I was a really good programmer and I wanted 8 00:00:28,760 --> 00:00:33,089 to understand the consumer side of the Internet. 9 00:00:33,090 --> 00:00:35,489 A lot of what I was doing was in the back end. 10 00:00:35,490 --> 00:00:39,619 While it would touch my mom and her life, 11 00:00:39,620 --> 00:00:41,459 it would be so in an indirect way. 12 00:00:41,460 --> 00:00:47,289 My mom may take a taxicab in New York City and may touch my software 13 00:00:47,290 --> 00:00:49,329 or buy a ticket to Alcatraz and may touch my software. 14 00:00:49,330 --> 00:00:50,879 But it wasn't direct. 15 00:00:50,960 --> 00:00:54,879 I wanted to learn about being more direct in interaction. 16 00:00:54,880 --> 00:00:57,294 So, I went to work with Ev and Biz. 17 00:00:57,480 --> 00:01:03,389 I quickly learned that no one else there enjoyed podcasting, either. 18 00:01:03,390 --> 00:01:07,269 So, no one was really excited to build the product or 19 00:01:07,270 --> 00:01:09,829 build the tool and they weren't consumers of the tool. 20 00:01:09,830 --> 00:01:12,479 So, we weren't building something that we loved to use. 21 00:01:12,830 --> 00:01:15,819 So, quite an interesting situation which 22 00:01:15,820 --> 00:01:19,339 allowed for other ideas to bubble up. 23 00:01:19,790 --> 00:01:28,519 In late 2005, early 2006, we all broke up into separate groups. 24 00:01:28,930 --> 00:01:31,739 We were given an assignment to come up with 25 00:01:31,740 --> 00:01:34,469 an idea of something you'd like to work on. 26 00:01:34,470 --> 00:01:39,604 The first thing that came to my mind was this idea back in 2000. 27 00:01:39,840 --> 00:01:43,499 But now in 2005-2006, we had the SMS. 28 00:01:43,500 --> 00:01:48,219 I could actually send an SMS message from Cingular to Verizon. 29 00:01:48,220 --> 00:01:50,469 That was very, very new to the United States. 30 00:01:50,470 --> 00:01:52,794 I was in love with the technology. 31 00:01:53,060 --> 00:01:57,079 It degrades gracefully to every single device, 32 00:01:57,080 --> 00:01:58,969 even the cheapest devices. 33 00:01:59,210 --> 00:02:02,579 And it has this beautiful constraint of 160 characters. 34 00:02:02,580 --> 00:02:05,539 It doesn't really work all the time. 35 00:02:05,540 --> 00:02:08,319 It's really rough around the edges. I love stuff like that. 36 00:02:08,560 --> 00:02:09,539 So, I brought up this idea, 37 00:02:09,540 --> 00:02:13,569 "What if we could just use SMS? You could send what 38 00:02:13,570 --> 00:02:16,939 you're doing. It will go out in real time to all the 39 00:02:16,940 --> 00:02:19,069 people who are interested in hearing it. And then, 40 00:02:19,070 --> 00:02:21,449 it would be archived on the Web. You could also enter 41 00:02:21,450 --> 00:02:23,589 it from the Web and it would be device-agnostic. 42 00:02:23,590 --> 00:02:26,839 It would be a whole thing. It would be awesome." 43 00:02:27,310 --> 00:02:30,449 My two other people in the park, we were on a playground, 44 00:02:30,660 --> 00:02:31,469 said it was a good idea. 45 00:02:31,470 --> 00:02:34,799 We presented it to the company. It took about a week. 46 00:02:34,800 --> 00:02:36,679 But then, the company finally got behind it. 47 00:02:36,680 --> 00:02:40,164 I was given two weeks and one other programmer 48 00:02:40,390 --> 00:02:45,060 in Biz Stone to write the software. And we did it. 49 00:02:45,160 --> 00:02:48,599 At the end of that two weeks, I wrote the first tweet, 50 00:02:48,600 --> 00:02:50,484 which was inviting coworkers. 51 00:02:50,660 --> 00:02:54,304 And then, all the Odeo coworkers came on; they loved it. 52 00:02:54,340 --> 00:02:55,449 And little by little, 53 00:02:55,610 --> 00:02:58,739 we took from that company and we bought them on the Twitter project 54 00:02:58,740 --> 00:03:02,804 until we spun it out as a separate company and sold off Odeo. 55 00:03:03,060 --> 00:03:08,939 So, that's how that sort of visualization and early 56 00:03:09,090 --> 00:03:11,949 desire to see the world led into Twitter, 57 00:03:11,950 --> 00:03:14,929 which is still a desire for me. 58 00:03:15,120 --> 00:03:18,319 Now we have more and more people using it all over the world. 59 00:03:18,390 --> 00:03:21,179 And it's even faster to see what's happening 60 00:03:21,180 --> 00:03:22,689 and what's unfolding in the world. 61 00:03:22,960 --> 00:03:26,479 But it really comes down to that curiosity about what's happening right 62 00:03:26,480 --> 00:03:31,709 now everywhere and really being the pulse of what's happening right 63 00:03:31,710 --> 00:03:36,200 now everywhere and being able to point to every single medium.