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Who Owned Twitter Before Jack Dorsey?
If you’re curious to know who owned Twitter before Jack Dorsey, look no further. Elon Musk is in the process of buying the social networking giant for $44 billion. Despite the rumors that have been floating around for weeks, the deal was finally announced on April 25. Elon Musk is the next owner of Twitter and we can’t wait to see what he has in store for the platform. However, if you’d like to know who else owned Twitter before he did, read on.
Jack Dorsey
If you’re not familiar with Twitter, you may be wondering: who is Jack Dorsey? In the 2010s, Twitter had 105 million users tweeting 55 million times a day. Jack Dorsey then invested in Foursquare and launched Square, a service that lets you accept credit card payments through a mobile device. On the same subject : How Much of Twitter Does Jack Own?. In October 2015, Square filed for an IPO and became a publicly traded company.
The rumors of Elon Musk taking over the company have fueled a heated debate about whether Jack Dorsey will remain CEO of Twitter. Jack Dorsey has denied rumors of his future in the position, tweeting: “Nah, I’ll never be CEO again!” It would appear that he doesn’t really want that role. Rather, he would prefer his Bluesky project to become the CEO. In addition to Twitter, Musk’s takeover plan includes plans to turn Twitter into a decentralized protocol, so Jack Dorsey might be right about that.
Evan Williams
Many of you might have heard of Evan Williams, the former CEO of Odeo. You may also have heard of his podcasting platform Odeo, which was sold to Google in 2007. After the acquisition of Blogger, Williams teamed up with Noah Glass to develop a podcasting platform. Read also : How to Get Twitter on Android. They launched it in 2006, and in 2007 they spun off their company as Twitter, Inc. During that time, Twitter became a hugely popular communication service, backed by news outlets, corporations, and celebrities.
Since Twitter’s inception, Evan has been an active investor. He has sold his shares in the company three times, most recently in April 2017. He said he planned to use the proceeds to fund new startups, make political donations, and donate to nonprofits. As of May 2018, he still owned about 3.86% of Twitter’s stock. Evan Williams is also the founder of the blogging platform Medium. Evan’s stake in Twitter was the largest of the four co-founders.
Biz Stone
Biz Stone was a co-founder of Twitter, but left in 2011 to pursue new endeavors. He formed Obvious Corporation, which also included fellow Twitter co-founder Ev Williams, and later sold the startup Jelly to Pinterest. Read also : How to See Trending on Twitter. He wasn’t required to remain at the company, though, and left Twitter for good. Among the perks of being a co-founder of the social networking site is the ability to work on your own time, and to build a product around your passion.
After selling Twitter, Stone went on to co-found the blogging site Medium with Evan Williams. He also co-founded the social network Jelly, which lets users ask questions and get answers. Jelly was acquired by Pinterest in March, and Stone joined the company as a special adviser to CEO Evan Sharp. In that role, Stone will continue to work with the company he co-founded. He has a wealth of entrepreneurial experience, and he is still close with the company’s co-founders, though it’s difficult to coordinate their schedules.
Noah Glass
Before creating Twitter, Noah Glass and Evan Williams were involved with a company called Odeo. Odeo was a podcasting platform, but became obsolete after the announcement of iTunes. The two co-founders began working on the idea in February 2006, and called it Twttr, which later changed to Twitter. When the company failed to catch on, they decided to pivot the company into something that would attract more users.
Evan Williams and Noah Glass had both founded startups before joining the Twitter team. Evan Williams and Biz joined forces after he backed an idea to start a podcasting platform. Both men were ex-Googlers, and Evan eventually bought out the investors. Glass conceived of Twitter while living in an apartment with his girlfriend. Noah and Biz had worked together on other projects before Twitter, and they were already friends. Evan Glass then sold Blogger to Google.
Vanguard Group
The Vanguard Group is a giant investment firm with a huge stake in Twitter. At the end of the first quarter, the group owned 10.3% of the company. The company is currently valued at $3.6 billion. The company’s shares are owned by five institutional investors, including one individual and four institutions. The Vanguard Group owns 82.4 million shares, which makes up 10.3% of Twitter’s net worth. The company’s valuation is rising, however, with the company’s recent announcement of a $43 billion bid from Warren Buffet.
The company’s filing shows the date that the event occurred as March 31. Generally, institutions that own at least 10% of a company must file a 13G form within 10 days of owning it. The form details the holdings of an investor as of the end of a month. In March, the Vanguard reported holdings of 8.8% of TWTR, while in February it held a 10.0% stake.
