• #182: Twitter – Not “X”

  • Dec 4 2024
  • Length: 23 mins
  • Podcast

#182: Twitter – Not “X”

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  • Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is... Well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [Out Of This World Plumbing Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders podcast. Dave Young here along with Stephen Semple. And as we record this, it is the morning. Stephen Semple: You're not excited on this one! Dave Young: Dude, come on. Come on. It's the morning of November 4th. Stephen Semple: And what happens tomorrow? Dave Young: Tomorrow we have a little election in the United States. The topic that Stephen whispered into my ear just as we started was Twitter. Let's talk about Twitter. Stephen Semple: Twitter. Dave Young: And I go to Elon Musk. I'm like, oh God. So please, let's do talk about Twitter and let's talk about their origins and not their demise. Stephen Semple: See, I thought you would be more excited. Because the real driver behind Twitter is a guy by the name of Evan Williams, and he grew up in Nebraska. Dave Young: Did he really? Stephen Semple: Yes! You didn't know about that. Dave Young: I thought he was a New York City guy. Because he started it with... It was like an emergency alert thing. Stephen Semple: Well, that's one of the things that kicked it in the high gear. But no, he grew up in a farm in Nebraska. Dave Young: Where? What town? Stephen Semple: Oh God, of course you're going to ask me that. I don't know what town. Dave Young: Because I know people everywhere. Stephen Semple: I automatically assume that you would know this part. Dave Young: I didn't know that. Every Nebraskan knows someone who knows every other Nebraskan. That's just like, it's a third degree of separation. Stephen Semple: But I figured in a place like Nebraska, everyone would know where this dude was from because of how big Twitter is. Dave Young: No, I don't. Please do tell. Stephen Semple: Okay. So the primary driver was Evan Williams, but also Jack Dorsey and Noah Glass and Stone played very, very big roles in the starting of Twitter. But Evan grew up, as I said on a farm in Nebraska, and he wasn't into sports, but he always knew he kind of wanted to do a business. And because of that, he read a lot of business books. And in particular, he read some marketing books, and he decided he wanted to learn more as he read a book by pretty famous marketing guy named Gary Halbert. And he said, "You know what? I want to learn more." So he literally drove to Key West Florida and basically walked into Gary's office and said, "I want a job working for you." Dave Young: I'm telling you, that's a bit of a drive from Nebraska. Stephen Semple: Yeah, it is. It is. So here's this farm boy from Nebraska showing up at Gary Halbert's office. And Gary basically gave him a writing assignment, said, "Fine, here, do this writing assignment. See how you do." And it was so good, Gary actually thought he had someone write it for him. He's like, no, no, no. Dave Young: This is before AI. Stephen Semple: Yeah, exactly. Actually, if it was written by AI, he wouldn't have accepted it. But anyway, that's a whole different issue. So Gary hires him, and he works there for about seven months. Learns a whole bunch of stuff and returns to Nebraska. And he returns Nebraska, it's the early nineties, and he decides he wants to start a website business. So he's trying to sell websites to local businesses. Now, at this point, he's in Lincoln, Nebraska. I don't know whether that's where he's from,
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