No. 024 · 2006 · San Francisco

Twitter

A podcast startup pivoted to telling people what you had for lunch.

Now X, for reasons

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Make my startup a legend
  1. 1 2005. Apple adds podcasts to iTunes.
  2. 2 Their podcast startup is toast.
  3. 3 One guy suggests a status over SMS.
  4. 4 Name: twttr. Limit: 140 characters.
  5. 5 SXSW 2007: it explodes.
  6. 6 The site falls over. A lot.
  7. 7 Everyone is now a broadcaster.
  8. 8 2022: $44B.
Founders
Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, Evan Williams and Noah Glass
Founded
2006, San Francisco
What they do
Short public posts, now called X.

The story

When Apple moved into podcasts, Odeo needed a new idea. Dorsey's status-update side project became Twitter, broke out at SXSW in 2007, and sold to Elon Musk for $44B in 2022.