The Journey of Evan Williams
Evan Williams, chief executive officer of web publisher, blogger, and previous chairman and CEO of Twitter. He is one of the popular computer programmer and internet entrepreneur in America. Most of the internet companies were introduced by him. He founded Medium and Blogger, two notable and the largest blog distribution website. Besides, he is also one of the well-known entrepreneurs. Many internet companies were co-founded by him. At a very early age, he converts small businesses into a big one. As he is a college drop out, he became the Twitter CEO in 2008.
Early Life and Education
Evan Clark Williams was born on 31st March 1972 in Clarks, Nebraska. Being the third child of Laurie Howe and Monte Williams, the maximum time of his childhood was spent in his hometown. He grew up on a farm in Clarks and during summer he assisted with crop irrigation. Later for about one and a half years, he attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. After that, he joined in the Farmhouse for fraternity and then he left home for pursuing his career.
Early Career
Once the college period was completed, Williams joined in various companies and performed technology-related workover there. Before returning to his own home, he worked for many start-up firms in Florida which are situated at Key West. Post that, he planned to shift in Sebastopol, California in Sonoma Country. There he worked for O’Reilly Media which is a technology publishing company. There he started a new marketing position in O’Reilly Media. This made him be an independent contractor for writing computer code. He also got a chance to work with a company like HP and Intel.
When he worked with the O’Reilly Media company, he started a new website and named his website EvHead.com. And on this website, first time, he introduced himself as a blogger. There he shares all his personal thoughts about technology and other things related to technology.
Pyra Labs and Blogger
In the year 1999, Evan Clark Williams co-founded Pyra-Labs along with Meg Hourihan. There they used to develop project management software. After a few times, for creating and managing weblogs and spun off a Blogger, this is the first web application software. He was the first man to coin the term ‘Blogger’ and then the term became popular worldwide. In the meantime, Hourihan and other employees of Pyra-Lab left the Pyra L and then Pyra tried to survive in the market. In the year 2003, 13th February, the company is acquired by Google. After a few years, he became an independent computer coder.
In the same year, when he was 35 years old, Williams founded MIT Technology Review TR100. Later it becomes one of the top 100 innovators all over the world. In the next year, 2004, he was named as the ‘People of the Year’ published by PC Magazine along with the Paul Bausch and Hourihan for their work on the Blogger.
Odeo and Obvious Corporation
He always wanted to have his own business and became the entrepreneur that is why he left Google in 2004, the 8th of October. A podcast company, Odeo, is co-founded by him. In the year 2006, he along with the former employee of the Odeo company co-founded Obvious Corporation with the company Biz Stone to get all the properties from the former backer of Odeo with a different goal. In the year 2007, Odeo was acquired by the Sonic mountain company.
The project of the Obvious Corporation was Twitter, which was a free and popular, micro-blogging service and free social networking website. In 2007, Twitter was spun out as a new company. And Williams became the co-founder, investor, and board member of Twitter. Later, in 2008, he became the CEO of Twitter in place of Jack Dorsey. He became the chairman of the board. In the year 2009, Twitter ranks the third most used social network, the list released by Compete.com. According to their report, approximately 55 million visitors visit Twitter monthly and approximately 6 million unique visitors open their accounts on Twitter. According to a report, there are 200 million registered users on Twitter. As of 2015, the month of August, there are 300,000 new users registered their accounts on Twitter and make rank 12th in all over the world.
According to Evan Williams, “ Twitter isn’t a social network, it’s an information network”.
In the year 2010, October he stepped down from his post as a CEO of Twitter mentioning that ‘completely focused on product strategy’ and Dick Costolo was appointed new CEO fo Twitter. Williams holds the board member’s post on Twitter. In 2013, IPO, Initial Public Offering of Twitter has announced that the company was valued at between US$14 billion and US$20 billion.
One of the media of the USA anticipated that Williams holds 30 to 35 5 stakes in Twitter and would see personal growth from US$2 billion to US$8 billion.
In 2017, April 6, Williams sold 30% of his stock on Twitter for his ‘ Personal Reasons’ says Williams on an article. He also stepped down from the board member post on Twitter in 2019.
Medium
Thereafter, Williams created a publishing platform and named Medium in the year 2012, September. At the initial stage, this is available only to early adopters but later it was opened to the public. Each of his projects built on the last, democratizing personal publishing for everyone.
Later, Williams along with Stone announced that they were going to left Obvious Corporations as they want to focus on individual startups.
XOXO Festival Presentation
In the year 2013, Williams presented the XOXO festival in Portland. There he explained his understanding of internet commerce.
Personal Life of Evan Clark Williams
Evan Clark Williams is a pure vegetarian in his personal life. His wife’s name is Sara. He lived in San Francisco along with her. He has two children. In his conserve time, Williams has been quoted as a philosopher. In this XOXO session, he met a lot of other technical people who have also taken place at the festival.
Future Business Plans
The USA President Donald Trump banned the use of Twitter and Williams says if this is true then he was sorry. He also told that he was wrong as he thought that if people talk in an open platform, it could be a better world. His thinking is about his future business including considerations about the effect of the internet upon society.
