Ev Williams
25 statements across 1 episodes · 6 bullish · 9 bearish · 1 people on the record · first statement May 6, 2024 by Ev Williams · across every show →
On the record as a speaker too: Ev Williams's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
Everything said about Ev Williams, oldest first
May 6, 2024 neutral
May 6, 2024
Facebook offered $500M in stock for 30-person Twitter in 2008
“Facebook, of course, was private at the time, but based on their valuation, they could do a stock deal that may value us around Half billion dollars, and that was a lot of money, and we were maybe, no, we were we were 30 people at the time.”
May 6, 2024 positive
May 6, 2024 neutral
May 6, 2024 positive
May 6, 2024 negative
Twitter's conflict-averse board never gave Williams negative feedback before firing him
“Somewhat ironically, the board of Twitter had a lot of conflict aversion. Because they never, never gave me that feedback to my face. I didn't know I was going to be fired at all, because no one ever told me I was doing a bad job. So there was a whole culture …”
May 6, 2024
Founders should only sell for burnout, imminent failure, or undeniable money
“I thought about it very deeply, and I came up with this, like, okay, why would you sell a company? I think there are three reasons, and none of these meet that criteria. Three reasons being, you don't want to do it anymore, and so you need someone to do it for…”
May 6, 2024 negative
May 6, 2024 negative
Williams: Late 1990s Silicon Valley fundraising was strictly a connections game
“And it was frustrating because everything you read is like, oh, it's so easy to raise money just rolling down the Sand Hill Road, and I didn't know anyone. Like, especially at the time, it's very, very much a connection game”
May 6, 2024 neutral
Odeo board rejected Williams' offer to return remaining $3M in funding
“I actually went to the board. I think we had three of the five million dollars left. And said, I can't sell you on the future of this company. Maybe we should just give the money back and go away. And the board was like, well, we didn't invest in podcasting. W…”
May 6, 2024 positive
May 6, 2024
May 6, 2024 negative
Odeo's $5M pre-product seed round eliminated agility against Apple's podcast entry
“We made the mistake of actually raising too much money pre-product, really even pre-product, we raised five million dollars, which was a terrible mistake because it allowed us to grow the team to the point where We just weren't nimble enough to easily pivot”
May 6, 2024 positive
May 6, 2024 neutral
Williams claims he did not plan to take over as Twitter CEO
“He was pushed out, and then I became CEO, which It's hard to believe, but it wasn't actually my plan. I still didn't necessarily want to be CEO. And we talked to a few other candidates, but then I was like, okay, maybe I'm the best person to be CEO.”
May 6, 2024
May 6, 2024 positive
Williams defends Twitter's heavily criticized trust and safety staff as integrity-driven
“You know, the team over the years gotten a lot of flack on the trust and safety side, but those people are some of the most earnest, hardworking, Integrity-driven folks I've ever seen in, in the world of business”
May 6, 2024 neutral
Williams paid off $10,000 in back IRS payroll taxes from first startup
“By the way, when I got to O'Reilly, I was in debt To the IRS. Cause I didn't pay payroll taxes at my first company, but I made enough money to pay off the 10,000 dollars or whatever it is, which seemed insurmountable before that.”
May 6, 2024 negative
Williams admits being conflict-averse and poor at relationship management at Pyra
“I would say, worse than that, I don't think I was good at relationships, which, even more fundamentally. I mean, management is a particular skill, but I wasn't good at relationships, i.e. How to deal with conflict, the most important thing, and I avoided confl…”
May 6, 2024
May 6, 2024 negative
Pyra Labs staff entirely walked out after Williams paused salary guarantees
“And then I sat everybody down and said, we don't have any money to pay you past this next pay period. So you're welcome to come back. I think this is on Friday. You're welcome to come back. I'm going to keep working. If you come back and work, you know, we'll …”
May 6, 2024 negative
May 6, 2024 negative
May 6, 2024 negative
Williams admits he was not a great CEO for a scaling Twitter
“I was not a great CEO by any stretch, and I think I was getting better at What I was very good at was product, and knowing, in my opinion, product and strategy, and knowing where to take the company, what we should build. But the company got to a size where lo…”
May 6, 2024 positive
Displaying live tweets on SXSW 2007 hallway screens created Twitter's tipping point
“Basically, everybody, everybody there got on Twitter. And, you know, it was a few thousand people, and again, lots of journalists, lots of bloggers, and so then they talked about it and wrote about it. It was a moment, just capturing lightning in a bottle amon…”