WEBVTT 00:00:03.030 --> 00:00:06.089 So, just random contract jobs until 00:00:06.090 --> 00:00:10.954 I discovered this company called Odeo, which was run by Evan Williams. 00:00:11.130 --> 00:00:14.049 Biz Stone was joining in a few months. 00:00:14.460 --> 00:00:18.049 It was a consumer podcasting company. 00:00:18.340 --> 00:00:20.939 I had never written a resume before. 00:00:21.300 --> 00:00:24.689 I had no interest in podcasting whatsoever. 00:00:24.690 --> 00:00:28.759 But I was a really good programmer and I wanted 00:00:28.760 --> 00:00:33.089 to understand the consumer side of the Internet. 00:00:33.090 --> 00:00:35.489 A lot of what I was doing was in the back end. 00:00:35.490 --> 00:00:39.619 While it would touch my mom and her life, 00:00:39.620 --> 00:00:41.459 it would be so in an indirect way. 00:00:41.460 --> 00:00:47.289 My mom may take a taxicab in New York City and may touch my software 00:00:47.290 --> 00:00:49.329 or buy a ticket to Alcatraz and may touch my software. 00:00:49.330 --> 00:00:50.879 But it wasn't direct. 00:00:50.960 --> 00:00:54.879 I wanted to learn about being more direct in interaction. 00:00:54.880 --> 00:00:57.294 So, I went to work with Ev and Biz. 00:00:57.480 --> 00:01:03.389 I quickly learned that no one else there enjoyed podcasting, either. 00:01:03.390 --> 00:01:07.269 So, no one was really excited to build the product or 00:01:07.270 --> 00:01:09.829 build the tool and they weren't consumers of the tool. 00:01:09.830 --> 00:01:12.479 So, we weren't building something that we loved to use. 00:01:12.830 --> 00:01:15.819 So, quite an interesting situation which 00:01:15.820 --> 00:01:19.339 allowed for other ideas to bubble up. 00:01:19.790 --> 00:01:28.519 In late 2005, early 2006, we all broke up into separate groups. 00:01:28.930 --> 00:01:31.739 We were given an assignment to come up with 00:01:31.740 --> 00:01:34.469 an idea of something you'd like to work on. 00:01:34.470 --> 00:01:39.604 The first thing that came to my mind was this idea back in 2000. 00:01:39.840 --> 00:01:43.499 But now in 2005-2006, we had the SMS. 00:01:43.500 --> 00:01:48.219 I could actually send an SMS message from Cingular to Verizon. 00:01:48.220 --> 00:01:50.469 That was very, very new to the United States. 00:01:50.470 --> 00:01:52.794 I was in love with the technology. 00:01:53.060 --> 00:01:57.079 It degrades gracefully to every single device, 00:01:57.080 --> 00:01:58.969 even the cheapest devices. 00:01:59.210 --> 00:02:02.579 And it has this beautiful constraint of 160 characters. 00:02:02.580 --> 00:02:05.539 It doesn't really work all the time. 00:02:05.540 --> 00:02:08.319 It's really rough around the edges. I love stuff like that. 00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:09.539 So, I brought up this idea, 00:02:09.540 --> 00:02:13.569 "What if we could just use SMS? You could send what 00:02:13.570 --> 00:02:16.939 you're doing. It will go out in real time to all the 00:02:16.940 --> 00:02:19.069 people who are interested in hearing it. And then, 00:02:19.070 --> 00:02:21.449 it would be archived on the Web. You could also enter 00:02:21.450 --> 00:02:23.589 it from the Web and it would be device-agnostic. 00:02:23.590 --> 00:02:26.839 It would be a whole thing. It would be awesome." 00:02:27.310 --> 00:02:30.449 My two other people in the park, we were on a playground, 00:02:30.660 --> 00:02:31.469 said it was a good idea. 00:02:31.470 --> 00:02:34.799 We presented it to the company. It took about a week. 00:02:34.800 --> 00:02:36.679 But then, the company finally got behind it. 00:02:36.680 --> 00:02:40.164 I was given two weeks and one other programmer 00:02:40.390 --> 00:02:45.060 in Biz Stone to write the software. And we did it. 00:02:45.160 --> 00:02:48.599 At the end of that two weeks, I wrote the first tweet, 00:02:48.600 --> 00:02:50.484 which was inviting coworkers. 00:02:50.660 --> 00:02:54.304 And then, all the Odeo coworkers came on; they loved it. 00:02:54.340 --> 00:02:55.449 And little by little, 00:02:55.610 --> 00:02:58.739 we took from that company and we bought them on the Twitter project 00:02:58.740 --> 00:03:02.804 until we spun it out as a separate company and sold off Odeo. 00:03:03.060 --> 00:03:08.939 So, that's how that sort of visualization and early 00:03:09.090 --> 00:03:11.949 desire to see the world led into Twitter, 00:03:11.950 --> 00:03:14.929 which is still a desire for me. 00:03:15.120 --> 00:03:18.319 Now we have more and more people using it all over the world. 00:03:18.390 --> 00:03:21.179 And it's even faster to see what's happening 00:03:21.180 --> 00:03:22.689 and what's unfolding in the world. 00:03:22.960 --> 00:03:26.479 But it really comes down to that curiosity about what's happening right 00:03:26.480 --> 00:03:31.709 now everywhere and really being the pulse of what's happening right 00:03:31.710 --> 00:03:36.200 now everywhere and being able to point to every single medium.