Evan Williams (entrepreneur)
| Evan Williams | |
|---|---|
 Evan Williams at TechCrunch50, September 2008 |
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| Born | Evan Clark Williams March 31, 1972 Clarks, Nebraska, United States |
| Residence | San Francisco, California, USA |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur |
| Years active | 1993–Present |
| Known for | Blogger |
| Spouse(s) | Sara Morishige |
| Children | 2 |
| Website | |
| www.evhead.com | |
Evan Williams (born March 31, 1972) is an American internet entrepreneur who has founded several Internet companies. Two of the internet's top ten websites have been created by Evan Williams' companies: Blogger, weblog-authoring software of Pyra Labs, and Twitter, where he was previously CEO.[1]
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Early life and education[edit]
Williams grew up on a farm in Clarks, Nebraska, where he assisted with crop irrigation in summers. He attended the University of Nebraska for a year and a half, eventually leaving to pursue his career.[2][3]
Career[edit]
Early career[edit]
After leaving school, Williams worked at various technology jobs and start-up firms in Key West, Dallas, Austin, Texas and again on his family farm in Nebraska. In 1996 Williams moved to Sebastopol, California in Sonoma County to work for the technology publishing company O'Reilly Media. He started at O'Reilly in a marketing position but eventually became an independent contractor writing computer code, which led to freelance opportunities with companies including Intel and Hewlett-Packard.[3]
Pyra Labs and Blogger[edit]
Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan 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.[4] Williams invented the term "blogger" and was instrumental in the popularization of the term "blog".[5] Pyra survived the departure of Hourihan and other employees, and was eventually acquired by Google on February 13, 2003.[6]
In 2003, Williams was named to the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35.[7] In 2004, he was named one of PC Magazine's "People of the Year", along with Hourihan and Paul Bausch for their work on Blogger.[8]
Odeo[edit]
Williams left Google in October 2004[9] to co-found Odeo, a podcasting company.[10] In late 2006, Williams co-founded Obvious Corp. with Biz Stone and other former Odeo employees to acquire all previous properties from Odeo's former backers.[11] In April 2007, Odeo was acquired by Sonic Mountain.[12]
Twitter[edit]
Among Obvious Corp.'s projects was Twitter, a popular, free social networking and micro-blogging service. Twitter itself was spun out into a new company in April 2007, with Williams as co-founder, board member and investor.[13] In October 2008, Williams became CEO of Twitter, displacing Jack Dorsey who became chairman of the board.[14] By February 2009, Compete.com ranked Twitter the third most-used social network based on their count of 6 million unique monthly visitors and 55 million monthly visits.[15] As of 14 April 2010, Twitter has 105,779,710 registered users. It gets 300,000 new users a day and receives 180 million unique visitors a month. 75% of its traffic comes from outside of Twitter.com. On 4 October 2010, Williams stepped down from CEO (to be taken over by Dick Costolo).
Medium[edit]
On September 25, 2012, Williams and Stone created a publishing platform called Medium. It is currently available only to early adopters, but will open to the public next year.[16]
On April 5, 2013, Williams and Stone announced that they would be unwinding Obvious Corp as they focused on individual startups.[17]
Personal life[edit]
Williams is a vegetarian.[3] He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Sara Morishige. Together they have two children.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ "People of the Year". 22 December 2004. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
- ^ Williams, Evan (7 March 2009). "For Twitter C.E.O., Well-Orchestrated Accidents". New York Times. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
- ^ a b c Malone, Michael S. (18 April 2009). "The Twitter Revolution". Wall Street Journal. p. A11. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
- ^ McKinnon, Matthew (2001). "King of the blogs". MatthewMckinnon.ca. Retrieved 2011-06-18.
- ^ Baker, John (20 April 2008). "Origins of "Blog" and "Blogger"". American Dialect Society Mailing List mailing list. http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0804C&L=ADS-L&P=R16795&I=-3. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
- ^ Gillmor, Dan (15 February 2003). "Google Buys Pyra: Blogging Goes Big-Time". SiliconValley.com. Archived from the original on 24 March 2003. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
- ^ "2003 Young Innovators Under 35: Evan Williams, 31". Technology Review. 2003. Retrieved August 14, 2011.
- ^ "People of the Year". PC Magazine. 22 December 2004. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
- ^ Festa, Paul (5 October 2004). "Blogger founder leaves Google". CNET. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
- ^ Carson, Nicholas (13 April 2011). "The real history of Twitter", Business Insider
- ^ Malik, Om (25 October 2006). "Odeo RIP, Hello Obvious Corp". GigaOm. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
- ^ Marshall, Matt (10 May 2007). "SonicMountain acquires podcasting company Odeo, reportedly for more than $1M". VentureBeat. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
- ^ Williams, Evan (16 April 2007). "Twitter, Inc.". Obviously. Obvious Corp. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
- ^ McCarthy, Caroline (16 October 2008). "Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey steps down". CNET. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
- ^ Kazeniac, Andy (9 February 2009). "Social Networks: Facebook Takes Over Top Spot, Twitter Climbs". Compete.com. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
- ^ "Twitter Co-Founders’ New Site, Medium, Will Open to Public in New Year". All Things D. Retrieved September 25, 2012.
- ^ "The Obvious Corp. Takes Backseat As Ev Williams, Biz Stone, And Jason Goldman Shift Focus To Individual Startups". TechCrunch. Retrieved April 12, 2013.
External links[edit]
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Evan Williams |
Speeches[edit]
Interviews[edit]
- Interview with Evan Williams at economist.com
- Interview with Evan Williams at cnet.com
- Interview with Evan Williams at techcrunch.com
- Interview with Evan Williams at FastCompany
| Business positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Jack Dorsey |
Twitter CEO 2008–2010 |
Succeeded by Dick Costolo |
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