Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal

by Nick Bilton

  While Jack had the germ of the idea, of people sharing their status, without Odeo the idea would have remained just that—an idea. It was Noah’s determination to save Odeo that brought Jack’s status concept to a group of people who brainstormed during the hack days and could execute it. Without Noah’s vision of a service that could connect people who felt alone, and a name that people would remember, Twitter would never exist. It was Ev who insisted on making Twitter about “what’s happening,” and without Ev’s financial support and Silicon Valley fame, Twitter would never have grown as rapidly as it did. And without Biz’s ethical stance on protecting and standing up for people who used the service, Twitter would be a very different company.

  Most of all, without the dozens of dedicated Twitter employees building and developing new ideas and keeping the site alive, the start-up might have failed like so many others.

  But Jack told a very different story. He had started to develop a creation myth.

  The Marathon Man

  A few months had passed since Jack had attended his first board meeting as silent chairman. But each session was still the same, as he sat deliberately glaring at Ev.

  For Ev it was slightly different. He had become efficient at ignoring Jack’s stare, as had Fred, Bijan, and Goldman.

  But there was a new person in the room who was confused by the spectacle. Peter Fenton, or Fenton as he was called, was the newest member of the Twitter board and its latest investor. He had arrived at his first board meeting in early 2009 with the excitement of a child on Christmas morning. Becoming an investor in Twitter had been one of the biggest challenges of his career so far, and here he was, finally a part of the company. It took about ten minutes for Fenton to realize there were no presents under the tree and something was seriously amiss at Twitter.

  He had been obsessing about the company for months. In January 2009 he caught wind that Twitter was about to raise its third round of financing. But the investment company Fenton worked for, Benchmark Capital, wasn’t going to be part of this funding.

  Fenton was thirty-six years old at the time and already worth tens of millions of dollars. He looked like a marine, with short light hair and a rigidly straight posture. As was the case for most venture capitalists in the Valley, it wasn’t about the money for him; it was about winning. Fenton had to be the best at everything he did: marathons, venture capital, learning to fly helicopters.

  To ensure he was involved in Twitter’s next round of investing, he pulled strings, pushed people, wined and dined Ev and Biz at Fenton’s home in the affluent area of San Francisco nicknamed Billionaire’s Row, and eventually, through sheer determination, became the lead investor in the company’s new round of financing, depositing twenty-one million dollars that would value Twitter at more than two hundred fifty million dollars.

  On February 13, 2009, Biz announced the new funding in a blog post that said, “Twitter is growing at a phenomenal rate. Active users have increased 900% in a year.” Missing from the post were the revenue numbers, which had increased by 0 percent since the company began. Still sitting at $0.

  Ev had fully taken charge of Twitter at this point, and although there were still just under thirty full-time employees (and a handful of freelancers) at the company, he had started to fend off the endless outages and other problems that had plagued Twitter in the past. Monetization was about to start moving up on the priority list. In January, Ev had hired Kevin Thau as Twitter’s director of mobile business development, with the task of developing partnerships and finally making money. Ev had also forged a collaboration with Current TV, the television company run by Al Gore, which would display tweets over live video during Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration.

  While Ev was trying to fix the internals of the blue bird, Biz, who was the most gregarious employee at the company, had become the official public face of Twitter. He had started traveling around the country spreading the Twitter gospel at conferences, going on talk shows, including The Colbert Report, and doing hundreds of magazine and newspaper interviews. But there was also now a new unofficial public face of Twitter.

  Jack had started work on Square, his mobile payments company, and settled into a new sparse and sleek apartment in Mint Plaza, just off Fifth Street. Though small, his new home was minimalist and appealed to Jack’s sterile sense. The floors were as flat and shiny as an ice-skating rink. The walls, blank.

  To the ire of Ev and Biz, Jack had continued to take interviews with anyone who requested to talk to him: newspapers, blogs, television outlets. Worse, Jack was beginning to sell the world on a story that he was still involved in Twitter in a day-to-day role, talking about new features the site had launched as if he were associated with their development, even though he didn’t even have a desk at the company’s offices.

  Rather than argue with Jack about his media blitz, Ev tried to solve the problem by including Jack in events. In early January 2009, Biz, Ev, and Jack had shared the stage at the Crunchies, an annual competition and awards ceremony for tech companies. Given Twitter’s unfathomable rise in popularity at the time, the three cofounders had won the award for “Best Startup Founders.” They took turns walking to the microphone and addressing the audience. Biz, who spoke first, thanked Jack and Ev for being an inspiration to him. Ev, second up, thanked Jack and Biz, who stood behind him on the stage. “This has really been a team effort and this should really be for the entire team,” Ev said with the award in his hand, always trying to give credit where it was due. “We have twenty-six people back at Twitter HQ who work their asses off.” Jack, last up, solemnly thanked the millions of people who used the service. “You’re changing the world 140 characters at a time,” Jack said in a monotone voice. Then they all walked offstage.

  Before becoming an investor, like most of the people in the audience at the Crunchies, Fenton had believed Jack had more of a day-to-day role at Twitter. Yet after the board meeting concluded, a sickening tension lingering in the room, Fenton was in mild shock.

  Back at his office he picked up the phone and called Bijan. “What the fuck was that all about?” he asked.

  “You mean you didn’t know?” Bijan said.

  “Know what?”

  Bijan dove in, telling Fenton everything: that Jack had been kicked out of the company, and why. That Ev had taken over, and why. And that, in case he hadn’t noticed, the two cofounders had a deep-seated dislike for each other.

  “I feel like I just walked into the conference room and there’s blood all over the wall,” Fenton said after hearing the story. He put the phone down and called Jack, asking him to meet for dinner. Jack suggested Chez Papa, near his apartment.

  As they sat in the darkened restaurant amid the chatter of patrons, Jack told Fenton his side of the story: that Ev pushed him out for power and control and that Twitter had been Jack’s idea. And he complained about the new direction of the company.

  Ev had been busy since Jack left, making lots of changes to the site and the service. He had wasted no time discontinuing many of the text-messaging partnerships that Jack had set up during his tenure as CEO (the same partnerships that had been siphoning hundreds of thousands of dollars a month out of Twitter’s bank account). Jack, who believed Twitter should work predominantly over SMS, complained to Fenton about this too. Ev this. Ev that.

  Fenton was incensed. His mouth was agape. Impassioned, he slammed his hand on the table and made Jack a promise he planned to keep. “I will not rest until you’re back in that company,” Fenton said, as he spiraled into a passionate tirade.

  For the first time in months Jack felt a sense of elation as he had finally recruited someone to his side. “You are the founder of this company,” Fenton said, his hand trumpeting the table. “I will not rest until you’re back at Twitter!”

  Dinner with Al

  Ev and Biz looked at each other and shrugged as they were directed through the St. Regis Hotel. They walked past the rectangular modern fireplace, then left, then right, through
the doors, down a hallway, finally coming upon a semiprivate elevator, where they were directed inside.

  “Okay, I got this,” Biz said as the elevator doors closed behind the two of them. “We are going for dinner with the former vice president of the United States.” He was clearly excited.

  Ev smirked as they rose through the hotel to its upper floors. They were dressed in their usual outfits: jeans, sweaters, jackets, and sneakers. The elevator finally came to stop and they emerged into a relatively dark hallway with deep beige walls and a plain maroon carpet. Dim lighting gave the hall the ambiance of a hip nightclub.

  “I guess this is it,” Biz said, tapping lightly on the door of a suite. They stood waiting for a few seconds, unsure what to do next, then heard footsteps approaching and a deep southern voice bellow from inside.

  “Hey, guys! Come on in,” Al Gore said as the door swung open and he waved them inside the extravagant apartment he owned atop one of the most luxurious hotels in San Francisco. “Welcome!”

  “Hey, Al!” Biz said, slapping his hand into a shake, even though he had barely spoken to the former vice president before. Ev, a little more austere in his manner, shook Gore’s hand and greeted him more formally. “Hello, Mr. Gore. It’s nice to see you.”

  It was March 2009 and Gore was running Current TV, the television network he had purchased after his semifailed presidential bid, and he had invited Ev and Biz to dinner at his San Francisco home to discuss “how Twitter and Current TV could work together.”

  As Ev and Biz took in the large, ornate space, Gore introduced them to the two other people in the room, one of whom was Joel Hyatt, Current TV’s cofounder.

  “Let me get you boys a drink,” Gore bellowed as he directed them inside. “We have everything. Whiskey, beer, wine, champagne?” he asked, then paused, peering back at them, his eyes popping open a little. “Shots?!” he said, followed by a deep vice-presidential laughter.

  Biz had never been taken by celebrities. A-, B-, C-, and Z-listers were of equal importance, and in most instances, to Biz the rich and famous were far less impressive than someone who got up each day and toiled in a blue-collar job.

  But Al Gore was different. Biz had been bursting with excitement to spend time with him. Like Biz, Gore had a great passion for the environment and animals. And they had one other thing in common: They both disliked George W. Bush.

  The relationship between Current TV and Twitter had started to tighten in 2008, when they had joined forces to create an experimental version of the presidential debates. The idea, called “Hack the Debate,” allowed people to tweet opinions about the presidential candidates that Current TV would then layer on top of live television. Although the missives people were sharing on Twitter were being referenced by mainstream news outlets, including CNN and MSNBC, Current TV had envisioned an entirely new way of creating interactive live television, almost merging the two mediums.

  After the debates had concluded, and Barack Obama had tweeted about winning the 2008 presidential election, Gore immediately saw how compelling the combination had been: people making fun of Sarah Palin in real time, debunking false statements by both candidates, rooting for their home team. Current TV was determined to develop a stronger bond with the future of media: Twitter.

  Like most high-level politicians, Gore had more charisma and charm than a Hollywood star. He told jokes and shared dramatic stories about his time as vice president. He talked about how he had wrangled Current from a French conglomerate by pulling lots of strings and calling in lots of favors.

  “We had to hold some metaphorical guns to some metaphorical heads,” Gore said with a chuckle. Then Joel, his business partner, chimed in. “Al, the heads were real!” Followed by a roar of laughter.

  More wine was poured. Then more. Before they knew it, Ev and Biz were getting sloppy drunk with the former vice president of the United States. Biz beamed at Gore and spoke to him as if they were old drinking buddies in a shabby Boston pub. “Al” this and “Al” that, followed by more jokes. He was smitten. Ev was having fun too, but upon noticing Biz’s excitement, he decided to head off what was surely coming next from Gore and his executives.

  “Just so you know,” Ev said, interrupting the group, “Biz gets very excited and may very well come up with a plan about how we can all work together, but I want to preface that this is just him being excited.” Then, sobering up for a brief moment, he added: “We’re not necessarily agreeing to anything.”

  At this point in Twitter’s life, Ev had been through dozens of acquisition attempts by celebrities who had asked to meet “just to talk” and then pitched him on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to partner up, all for the low-low price of an ownership stake in Twitter.

  Celebrities wanted equity in Twitter in exchange for using the service. It had happened before with Ashton Kutcher, the actor turned entrepreneur, who had invited Ev and Biz down to his house in LA to “talk.” There, by the pool at Kutcher’s house, with his wife, Demi Moore, sitting close by, Kutcher had pitched them on ownership of the company. Sean “Puffy” Combs, the rapper, had also tried to negotiate an ownership deal with Ev.

  Each time, Ev had politely responded, telling the rich and famous, who were never told no, “No.” It happened with CEOs too. At a dinner at Bill Gates’s multimillion-dollar house in Seattle, Steve Ballmer, the chief of Microsoft, told Ev if he ever wanted to sell the company, Microsoft would be very interested. Ev politely declined Ballmer.

  For Ev it was never about the money or the celebrities. It always went back to Ev’s vision of building something that gave people from nowhere—like, say, Clarks, Nebraska—the same equal voice as those from somewhere.

  Now it was Al Gore’s turn to try to get some of the blue bird’s feathers.

  “Listen, boys,” Gore said, as he began presenting some ideas, including the concept that they team up to create a company called Twitter TV. It would be a sort of merger of the two companies. Gore said that Twitter and Current TV could build the future of television, that together they would take Twitter beyond just being a layer on top of TV and create an entirely new interactive experience in the living room.

  Gore was very convincing. The arrangement would likely give him a large ownership stake in Twitter. Ev opened his mouth to politely turn down the offer, but Biz drunkenly interrupted.

  “Al. Al. I think you’re totally right,” Biz slurred. “But if you’re right—and I believe you are—why would we lock ourselves in with just you? Why wouldn’t we do what you’re asking with every TV channel out there?”

  Gore paused for a moment before making an impassioned argument. It was persuasive, but not compelling enough for Ev and Biz. Ev politely said that they would give it some thought. Take it back to the company. Sleep on it.

  As the dinner wrapped up, Gore wasn’t giving up. He emerged from the kitchen with a bottle of Patrón tequila and a handful of shot glasses. “They tell me this is the good stuff,” he said with loud laughter. Shots were poured, and soon they were swishing vice-presidential Patrón back with the wine. Ev said it was probably time to go. “Thanks so much for dinner and everything,” he told Gore. “We’ll be in touch soon.”

  Ev and Biz walked to the elevator, rode down to the lobby, and sat in the hotel bar, sipping more drinks and trying to decompress from the meeting.

  “Holy shit!” Biz said as he almost fell out of his chair, wasted. “We just got drunk with the guy who was almost the fucking president!”

  But it didn’t take long for them to realize their answer was once again going to be no. They were determined to keep Twitter independent.

  “We gotta stop doing these meetings with famous people,” Ev said. “They keep trying to buy us!”

  Oprah

  Ev was resting on the beige satin cushioned bench at the edge of the bed in the Trump International Hotel & Tower when the lights flickered back on. The Chicago River glimmered below, reflecting the Second City like an underground fireworks show.

 
A series of thunderstorms had stretched across the Midwest, knocking out power and delaying flights—including Ev and Sara’s—so the two had arrived in Chicago much later than they had hoped. Then, while checking into their hotel, the power had gone out.

  Sara was pregnant with their first child and in a fit of hunger had raided the minibar in search of food. Now packets of peanuts, chips, and candy were strewn about the entire room as she began unpacking their suitcases.

  It was Thursday, April 16, 2009, and one of the most bizarre weeks yet for Twitter still hadn’t come to a close.

  As soon as the power had come back on, Ev leaned over and picked up the remote control for the hotel television. He quickly turned to CNN and listened for a moment before he started shaking his head with a shocked laugh. Anderson Cooper was staring into the camera, as if he were talking only to Ev and Sara, not to the millions of other people watching the twenty-four-hour news network, and he said repeatedly, “We need you to go to Twitter.com and follow CNN.” Sara paused and looked over at Ev as she unpacked his brown shirt for the following day.

  “What the hell is happening?” Ev said as he looked back at his wife with amazement. “What world are we living in here?”

  They paused for a moment, taking in the reality of the situation: Here they were, in the Trump Hotel in Chicago, watching CNN race Ashton Kutcher to be the first account to get to one million followers on Twitter, and in a few short hours Ev would be going on The Oprah Winfrey Show to help Oprah, one of the most famous and influential women in the world, send her first tweet.