Evan Williams (Internet entrepreneur)
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Evan "Ev" Clark Williams (born March 31, 1972) is an American billionaire technology entrepreneur and executive. He is a co-founder of
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
, and served as
CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
of
Twitter, Inc. Twitter, Inc. is an American social media company based in San Francisco, California. The company operates the social networking service Twitter. It previously operated the Vine short video app and Periscope livestreaming service. Tw ...
from 2008 to 2010 and as a member of its
board Board or Boards may refer to: Flat surface * Lumber, or other rigid material, milled or sawn flat ** Plank (wood) ** Cutting board ** Sounding board, of a musical instrument * Cardboard (paper product) * Paperboard * Fiberboard ** Hardboard, a ty ...
from 2007 to 2019. He founded Blogger and
Medium Medium may refer to: Science and technology Aviation * Medium bomber, a class of war plane * Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Communication * Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data * Medium ...
, two of the largest
blogging A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...
internet platforms. In 2014, he co-founded the
venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which h ...
firm Obvious Ventures. , his net worth is estimated at US$2.1 billion.


Early life and education

Williams was born in
Clarks, Nebraska Clarks is a village in Merrick County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 344 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Grand Island, Nebraska Micropolitan Statistical Area. History Clarks was platted in 1866 when the Union Pacific Railr ...
, as the third child of Laurie Howe and Monte Williams. He grew up on a farm in Clarks, where he assisted with crop irrigation during the summers. He attended the
University of Nebraska–Lincoln The University of Nebraska–Lincoln (Nebraska, NU, or UNL) is a public land-grant research university in Lincoln, Nebraska. Chartered in 1869 by the Nebraska Legislature as part of the Morrill Act of 1862, the school was known as the Univers ...
for a year and a half, where he joined
FarmHouse FarmHouse (FH) is a social fraternity founded at the University of Missouri on April 15, 1905. It became a national organization in 1921. Today FarmHouse has 33 active chapters and four associate chapters (formerly colonies) in the United State ...
fraternity, then left the school to pursue his career.


Career


Early career

After leaving college, Williams worked at various technology jobs and
start-up A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...
firms in
Key West Key West ( es, Cayo Hueso) is an island in the Straits of Florida, within the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Island, it cons ...
, Florida, and in
Dallas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...
and
Austin Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...
, Texas, before returning to his family farm in Nebraska. In 1996 Williams moved to
Sebastopol, California Sebastopol ( ) is a city in Sonoma County, in California with a recorded population of 7,521, per the 2020 U.S. Census. Sebastopol was once primarily a plum and apple-growing region. Today, wine grapes are the predominant agriculture crop, ...
in Sonoma County to work for the technology publishing company
O'Reilly Media O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates) is an American learning company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books, produces tech conferences, and provides an online learning platform. Its distinctive brand features a woodcut of ...
. 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 Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 ser ...
and
Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
. While he was working at O'Reilly, he also started a website called EvHead.com, where he first began blogging about his personal thoughts.


Pyra Labs and Blogger

Evan Williams and
Meg Hourihan Meg Hourihan is the cofounder of Pyra Labs, the company that launched the Blogger personal blogging software that was acquired by Google. Career Hourihan graduated from Tufts University in 1994. In 1999, she and Evan Williams co-founded Pyra ...
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. Williams coined the term "blogger" and was instrumental in the popularization of the term "blog". Pyra survived the departure of Hourihan and other employees, and was later acquired by
Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
on February 13, 2003. In 2003, Williams was named to the MIT
Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and editorially independent of the university. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "The" in ...
TR100 The Innovators Under 35 is a peer-reviewed annual award and listicle published by ''MIT Technology Review'' magazine, naming the world's top 35 innovators under the age of 35. at ''Technology Review'' with lists of winners at technologyreview.com ...
as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35. In 2004, he was named one of ''
PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the presen ...
s "People of the Year", along with Hourihan and Paul Bausch, for their work on Blogger.


Odeo and Obvious Corporation

Williams officially left Google on October 8, 2004, to co-found Odeo, a
podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...
company. In late 2006, Williams co-founded Obvious Corporation with
Biz Stone Christopher Isaac "Biz" Stone (born March 10, 1974) is an American entrepreneur who is a co-founder of Twitter, among other technology companies. Stone was the creative director at Xanga from 1999 to 2001. Stone co-founded Jelly, with Ben Finkel ...
and other former Odeo employees, to acquire all previous properties from Odeo's former backers. In April 2007, Odeo was acquired by Sonic Mountain.


Twitter

Among Obvious Corporation's projects was
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
, 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. In October 2008, Williams became CEO of Twitter, succeeding
Jack Dorsey Jack Patrick Dorsey (born November 19, 1976) is an American Internet entrepreneur and programmer who is a co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, Inc., as well as a co-founder and the CEO and chairperson of Block, Inc., the developer of the Squa ...
, who became chairman of the board. By February 2009,
Compete.com Compete.com was a web traffic analysis service. The company was founded in 2000 and ceased operations in December 2016. Services Compete.com provided two categories of information: *Site Analytics : a free service, where the user can enter any ...
ranked Twitter the third most-used social network, based on their count of 6 million unique monthly visitors and 55 million monthly visits. As of February 2013, Twitter had 200 million registered users. 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. 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. On April 6, 2017, an article announced Williams would sell 30 percent of his stock in Twitter, for "personal reasons." In February 2019, Williams stepped down from his role as a board member of Twitter.


Medium

On September 25, 2012, Williams created the publishing platform,
Medium Medium may refer to: Science and technology Aviation * Medium bomber, a class of war plane * Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Communication * Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data * Medium ...
. Initially, it was available only to early adopters, but was opened to the public in 2013. On April 5, 2013, Williams and Stone announced that they would be unwinding Obvious Corporation as they focused on individual startups. On July 12, 2022, it was announced Williams would step down as Medium's CEO and become the chairman of the board.


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. 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.


Personal life

Williams lives in the
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
area with his wife, Sara, with whom he has two children. He is a
vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. Vegetariani ...
, and has invested – through the Obvious Corporation – in plant-based
meat alternative A meat alternative or meat substitute (also called plant-based meat or fake meat, sometimes pejoratively) is a food product made from vegetarian or vegan ingredients, eaten as a replacement for meat. Meat alternatives typically approximate qua ...
,
Beyond Meat Beyond Meat, Inc. is a Los Angeles–based producer of plant-based meat substitutes founded in 2009 by Ethan Brown. The company's initial products were launched in the United States in 2012. History Founding Ethan Brown founded the company in ...
.


Views

Williams has been quoted as having a philosophy that it is important to conserve time, do fewer things, and to avoid distractions. Williams presented at the 2013
XOXO Festival XOXO is an annual festival and conference held in Portland, Oregon, that describes itself as "an experimental festival for independent artists who live and work online". XOXO was founded in 2012 by Andy Baio and Andy McMillan with funding from p ...
in
Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous ...
, and explained his understanding of Internet commerce. 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 Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...
, and asserted that the Internet is not a
utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book '' Utopia'', describing a fictional island soc ...
. After President Trump credited his election to the use of Twitter, Evan Williams stated that if true, he was sorry, and he was concerned that the Internet platform rewarded 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.Streitfeld, David,
Internet Is Broken': @ev Is Trying to Salvage It
', New York Times, May 20, 2017


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Evan 1972 births Living people American bloggers American computer businesspeople Businesspeople from Nebraska Twitter, Inc. people People from Merrick County, Nebraska American billionaires American technology chief executives 21st-century American businesspeople 20th-century American businesspeople American chairpersons of corporations Directors of Twitter, Inc.