The man who invented Twitter ended up broke.
Noah Glass came up with the name “Twitter.”
He helped write the code.
Then Jack Dorsey fired him & never mentioned his name again.
Here's the story of Twitter’s forgotten founder: https://t.co/NCGgY6c1Cp
Noah founded Odeo, a podcasting platform.
It was his baby.
His shot at building something that mattered. https://t.co/BFznMLTStH
But in 2006, Odeo was dying.
Apple’s iTunes had just crushed its podcasting business.
Inside Odeo, there was chaos.
People were scrambling for new ideas.
Most had already given up. https://t.co/kK5VOiS5V2
But not Noah Glass.
Noah was restless. Emotional. Idealistic.
He believed they could still pivot.
They just needed the right idea. https://t.co/h7uITLmyMZ
That’s when Jack Dorsey pitched something wild.
What if people could share their status updates to their friends...
But in short, SMS-style messages?
Noah latched onto it.
He wasn’t the original idea guy.
But he became the heart and soul of the project. https://t.co/bMncKxsGsC
He pushed the team to make it real.
He rallied the engineers.
He obsessed over the design.
And most of all…
He obsessed over the name. https://t.co/qRxONh7cyf
For days, Noah searched dictionaries, brainstormed, wrote lists.
Until finally, he landed on the perfect word:
Twitter.
“It means a short burst of inconsequential information, and chirps from birds.”
It was playful.
It was sticky.
It was exactly what they needed.
Noah loved it.
As Twitter’s first prototype came to life, Noah became its loudest champion.
He hosted user meetups.
Tweeted constantly.
Told everyone he could about the new platform.
He believed Twitter would change the world.
But inside the company?
The politics were changing.
And Noah didn’t see the knives coming.
Evan Williams, Odeo’s CEO, quietly moved to buy back the company from investors.
Twitter would be spun off into a new company.
But there was a catch:
Noah was being cut out.
Without warning.
Without ceremony.
He was fired.
Reportedly… by text message. https://t.co/7OWVc9A5Nq
Jack Dorsey became the face of Twitter.
Ev Williams became the billionaire CEO.
Noah Glass?
Erased from the story.
His name wasn’t on the press releases.
He got no stock windfall.
He became a ghost in Silicon Valley.
He later tweeted:
“I started this... and they fired me.” https://t.co/1OI9jSUGwp
Years later, even Ev Williams admitted:
“Noah should get more credit for Twitter.”
But the world had moved on.
Noah faded into tech obscurity.
His story became a cautionary tale. https://t.co/2WQ9yBB3Tp
People who build empires for others...
and get written out of the story
Makes you think.
How many Noah Glass get erased from the stories we celebrate? https://t.co/QQIXmWs1WS
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