Acquired · Twitter · History
History
Twitter was founded in 2006 (San Francisco, United States). The timeline below traces every inflection point Acquired identified — founding, leadership changes, strategic pivots, crises, cultural moments.
The story
Twitter emerged from Odeo's pivot and grew faster than its monetization system. Dick Costolo's account focuses on the transition from a zero-revenue network into a scaled advertising business without sacrificing the distributed nature of the product.
Inflection points · grouped by decade
2000s
- 2006Founding
Odeo pivots into Twitter
A podcasting company redirects a small team toward short, real-time status messages.
[Acquired: Twitter with Dick Costolo (October 2020)]
- 2009Leadership
Dick Costolo joins as COO
He closes data-licensing deals with Google and Microsoft, then begins building a scalable ad model.
[Acquired: Twitter with Dick Costolo (October 2020)]
2010s
- 2010Leadership
Costolo becomes CEO
Twitter builds product, engineering, and go-to-market teams around a native feed advertisement.
[Acquired: Twitter with Dick Costolo (October 2020)]
- 2013IPO
Twitter goes public
The public listing follows rapid monetization from a challenger position in digital advertising.
[Acquired: Twitter with Dick Costolo (October 2020)]