Anything Could Happen

PREV 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 NEXT

This strange statement encapsulates Williams's business philosophy. He believes that small ideas are almost always better than grand visions. That Twitter's main function--telling you what your friends are doing--is included as a feature in Facebook, MySpace, and most instant messaging programs doesn't bother him in the slightest. "I think features can make great companies," he says. "You just have to choose them right." Moreover, he argues, a product can succeed by doing less than a competitive product. Case in point: Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), which rocketed to popularity because of a single feature--the search box--while its chief competitor, Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO), offered dozens of services, from search to stock quotes to horoscopes. Google operated for years without a business model before it figured out that it could throw off billions in cash by serving little text ads next to its search results. "Applying constraints can help your company and your customers in unexpected ways," says Williams. "The default thing we do is ask how we can add something to make it better. Instead we should say, What can we take away to create something new?"

That an entrepreneur can look at something as silly as Twitter and say, Yes, this is the future, is remarkable. Technology inventors have a horrible track record of turning new behaviors into long-term financial successes--social networking pioneer Friendster was long ago lapped by MySpace and Facebook; the first search engines, Web browsers, and video game systems met similar fates. And it's not as if Williams doesn't have the money (he made a reported $50 million selling Blogger to Google) or the connections (Twitter's angel investors read like a who's who of Silicon Valley) to attempt something more ambitious.

But he doesn't care to. And he probably doesn't need to. Mass adoption of broadband and social networking have made finding customers cheaper, and a booming online advertising market has made it easier to turn a profit once you attract them. Moreover, a handful of acquisition-happy tech companies have shown a willingness to add services by buying tiny, money-losing start-ups for tens of millions of dollars. These may be signs of yet another technology bubble, but there are smart people, like start-up financier Paul Graham, who argue that technology start-ups are undergoing a fundamental change, becoming smaller, cheaper to start, and more numerous--in short, commoditized. We may be entering an era of the little idea, a time tailor-made for Evan Williams.

Williams grew up on a corn farm in Clarks, Nebraska (population 379). He's a self-taught coder, having dropped out of college after only a year to start a company. But this wasn't Bill Gates dropping out of Harvard to start Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT). The college was the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the companies--there were three failures in five years--were unambitious, money losing, and admittedly dopey. Williams's most successful product was a CD-ROM for fans of the Cornhuskers football team. Finally, convinced he still knew little about how to run a business, he cut his losses, took a Web development job in California, and started writing about it.

Today, Williams is 35 years in age and unassuming in appearance. He talks quietly in the soft, flat tones of a Midwesterner. He's handsome, but ordinarily so. In person, wearing a nice pair of jeans, a gray T-shirt, and a cashmere cardigan, he is subdued and guarded. When his bagel with peanut butter and banana is brought to our table sans banana, he seems to struggle mightily as he weighs what to do about it. Williams often speaks tentatively, revising, disclaiming, and qualifying his thoughts in a manner that most businesspeople would take as a sign of weakness. When I ask him a question on start-up finance, he starts with a disclaimer. "I was thinking a little differently before," he says, pausing. "I wonder why that is?" A conversation with Williams can quickly devolve into an inscrutable merry-go-round of ideas.

But to meet him online is a different story. Many of the qualities that make Williams awkward in real life play beautifully on Evhead.com, the online journal he has maintained since 1996. Williams's honesty, his tendency toward frankness, and his willingness to admit not knowing everything make him different from most business bloggers. They make him interesting.

As the name suggests, Evhead is a record of Williams's thoughts, profound and otherwise. In the past months he has posted a picture of himself and his wife, Sara, with a stuffed black bear--as well as a thoughtful essay on how to evaluate a new software product and an untitled post that reads, "I'm awake at 5:37 (for two hours now). Thinking about so many things." Even 15 years ago, an entrepreneur who did this would have seemed creepy or ridiculous. But to members of the Facebook generation, who meticulously groom their online profiles--posting photos while sharing everything from their political preferences to what's currently in their Netflix queue--Williams comes off as likable, even humble.

PREV 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 NEXT

Try a RISK-FREE Issue of Inc. Today!

Renew | Contact Us | Current Issue

Select Services