Evan Williams (Internet entrepreneur) explained

Evan Williams
Birth Name:Evan Clark Williams
Birth Date:31 March 1972
Birth Place:Clarks, Nebraska, U.S.
Occupation:Internet entrepreneur
Years Active:1993–present
Known For:Blogger
Twitter
Medium
Spouse:Sara Morishige Williams
Children:2

Evan Clark "Ev" Williams (born March 31, 1972) is an American billionaire technology entrepreneur.[1] He is a co-founder of Twitter, and was its CEO from 2008 to 2010, and a member of its board from 2007 to 2019. He founded Blogger and Medium. In 2014, he co-founded the venture capital firm Obvious Ventures., his net worth is estimated at US$2.1 billion.[2]

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, then left the school to pursue his career.[4] [5] [6]

Career

Early career

After departing from college, Williams took on various technology jobs and start-up firms in Key West, Florida, and in Dallas and Austin, Texas, 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 working at O'Reilly, he also started a website called EvHead.com, where he first began blogging about his thoughts.[7]

Pyra Labs and Blogger

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 was later acquired by Google on February 13, 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 Magazines "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 October 8, 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.[22]

On April 6, 2017, an article announced Williams would sell 30 percent of his stock in Twitter, for "personal reasons."[23]

In February 2019, Williams stepped down from his role as a board member of Twitter.[24]

Medium

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

On April 5, 2013, Williams and Stone announced that they would be unwinding Obvious Corporation as they focused on individual startups.[26]

On July 12, 2022, it was announced Williams would step down as Medium's CEO and become the chairman of the board.[27] [28] [29]

Obvious Ventures

In 2014, Williams co-founded the venture capital firm Obvious Ventures with James Joaquin and Vishal Vasishth. The firm is focused on companies they believe can make a positive change in the world.[30] [31] Since its inception the fund has raised about $585 million—$123 million in its first round, $191 million in its second and $271 million in its latest round.[32]

Personal life

Williams lives in the San Francisco area with his wife, Sara, with whom he has two children.[33] [34] He is a vegetarian,[5] and has invested – through the Obvious Corporation – in a plant-based meat alternative, Beyond Meat.[35]

Views

Williams has been quoted as having a philosophy that it is important to conserve time, do fewer things, and to avoid distractions.[36]

Williams presented at the 2013 XOXO Festival in Portland, Oregon, and explained his understanding of Internet commerce.[37] 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.

After President Donald Trump credited his election win to the use of Twitter, Evan Williams stated that if true, he was sorry.[38] He also said that the internet is "obviously broken because it rewards 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. His musings about future business objectives include considerations about the effect of the Internet upon society.[39]

Notes and References

  1. News: The Los Angeles Times. Twitter founder Evan Williams is now a billionaire (on paper). Jessica Guynn . October 3, 2013 . December 6, 2022.
  2. News: Forbes profile: Evan Williams . Forbes . February 28, 2022.
  3. Web site: Twitter co-founder Evan The success of Williams doesn't surprise those who knew him growing up in Nebraska . Cole Epley / World-Herald staff . writer . May 7, 2014 . July 21, 2016.
  4. News: Evan . Williams . For Twitter C.E.O., Well-Orchestrated Accidents . The New York Times . March 7, 2009 . August 16, 2009 .
  5. News: Michael S. . Malone . The Twitter Revolution . The Wall Street Journal . A11 . April 18, 2009 . August 16, 2009 .
  6. News: Twitter exec, Nebraska native Evan Williams at UNL 10 April . . April 10, 2009.
  7. News: Ev Williams: Never underestimate your first idea Masters of Scale podcast. WaitWhat. 2018-03-20. en-US.
  8. News: McKinnon . Matthew . King of the blogs . MatthewMckinnon.ca . 2011-06-18 . 2001 .
  9. Origins of "Blog" and "Blogger" . April 20, 2008 . August 16, 2009 . American Dialect Society Mailing List . Baker . John . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20090221032355/http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0804C&L=ADS-L&P=R16795&I=-3 . February 21, 2009.
  10. Web site: Dan . Gillmor . Google Buys Pyra: Blogging Goes Big-Time . https://web.archive.org/web/20030324075343/http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/000802.shtml . February 15, 2003 . March 24, 2003 . SiliconValley.com . August 16, 2009.
  11. Web site: 2003 Young Innovators Under 35: Evan Williams, 31 . . 2003 . August 14, 2011.
  12. News: People of the Year . PC Magazine . December 22, 2004 . August 16, 2009 . August 19, 2009 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090819073732/http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1744185,00.asp . dead .
  13. News: Paul . Festa . Blogger founder leaves Google . CNET . October 5, 2004 . July 17, 2019 .
  14. Carson, Nicholas (April 13, 2011). "The real history of Twitter", Business Insider
  15. News: Om . Malik . Odeo RIP, Hello Obvious Corp . GigaOm . October 25, 2006 . August 16, 2009 . May 2, 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190502183300/https://gigaom.com/2006/10/25/odeo-rip-hello-obvious-corp/ . dead .
  16. News: Matt . Marshall . SonicMountain acquires podcasting company Odeo, reportedly for more than $1M . VentureBeat . May 10, 2007 . August 16, 2009 .
  17. Web site: Williams . Evan . Twitter, Inc. . April 16, 2007 . Obviously . Obvious Corp. . August 16, 2009 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20090729063351/http://blog.obvious.com/2007/04/twitter-inc.html . July 29, 2009.
  18. News: Caroline . McCarthy . Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey steps down . . October 16, 2008 . August 16, 2009 . July 29, 2009 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090729120453/http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10068368-36.html . dead .
  19. News: Andy . Kazeniac . Social Networks: Facebook Takes Over Top Spot, Twitter Climbs . February 9, 2009 . Compete.com . August 16, 2009 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110721111825/http://blog.compete.com/2009/02/09/facebook-myspace-twitter-social-network/ . July 21, 2011 . dead.
  20. Web site: Celebrating #Twitter7 - Twitter Blogs . . 2013-12-06.
  21. Web site: Dick Costolo Takes Twitter CEO Role So Evan Williams Can Focus on Product . . AOL Inc . November 8, 2013 . MG Siegler . October 4, 2010.
  22. Web site: Budhori . Dheeraj . The Journey of Evan Williams . medium.com. October 7, 2020 .
  23. Web site: Twitter co-founder Ev Williams is selling 30 percent of his stock for 'personal' reasons . . 2018-07-04.
  24. Web site: Why Board Members Decide To Step Down . Gourani . Soulaima . Forbes . en . 2020-01-17.
  25. News: Twitter Co-Founders' New Site, Medium, Will Open to Public in New Year . All Things D . September 25, 2012.
  26. News: The Obvious Corp. Takes Backseat As Ev Williams, Biz Stone, And Jason Goldman Shift Focus To Individual Startups . TechCrunch . April 12, 2013.
  27. News: . Evan Williams Is Stepping Down as C.E.O. of Medium . Benjamin Mullin . July 12, 2022 . December 6, 2022.
  28. News: Loizos . Connie . Ev Williams calls it quits as CEO of Medium. July 12, 2022 . . July 12, 2022.
  29. Web site: Roston . Sandee . Medium names technology and digital media veteran Tony Stubblebine CEO; founder Ev Williams transitions to Chairman of the Board . Medium . July 12, 2022 . July 12, 2022.
  30. Web site: Lawler . Ryan . 2014-12-08 . Ev Williams' Obvious Ventures Is A Fund For Investing In 'World-Positive' Startups . 2022-09-22 . TechCrunch . en-US.
  31. Web site: Clifford . Catherine . 2014-12-08 . Twitter Co-Founder Launches 'World Positive' Investing Fund . 2022-09-22 . Entrepreneur . en.
  32. Web site: Bursztynsky . Jessica . Twitter co-founder and early Beyond Meat investor raises third fund . 2022-09-23 . CNBC . January 14, 2020 . en.
  33. Web site: Ryan Mac . October 3, 2013 . Twitter Cofounder Evan Williams A Billionaire After 12% Stake in Company Is Revealed . November 8, 2013 . Forbes.com.
  34. Web site: August 22, 2013 . Twitter co-founder Evan Williams sells Noe Valley home . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20130826215621/http://homes.yahoo.com/photos/twitter-co-founder-evan-williams-sells-noe-valley-home-1377201729-slideshow/ . August 26, 2013 . November 8, 2013 . Yahoo! Homes . Yahoo - Zillow Real Estate Network.
  35. Web site: Biz Stone Explains Why Twitter's Co-Founders Are Betting Big on a Vegan Meat Startup . Ariel Schwartz . 2012-06-12 . . 2020-07-16.
  36. Web site: Issie Lapowsky . February 2, 2013 . Evan Williams's Rule for Success: Do Less . June 26, 2018 . Inc..
  37. Web site: Ryan Tate . October 1, 2013 . Twitter founder reveals secret formula for getting rich online . October 5, 2013 . Wired.co.uk . Condé Nast UK.
  38. News: Twitter leader says he's 'sorry' for social media role in Trump's election . Associated Press . chicagotribune.com . 2017-05-21 . en-US. https://web.archive.org/web/20170521035442if_/http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/technology/ct-twitter-leader-trump-election-20170520-story.html. 2017-05-21.
  39. Streitfeld, David, Internet Is Broken': @ev Is Trying to Salvage It, New York Times, May 20, 2017

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