There's a culture of celebrity around founders in the tech business and certainly the Twitter founders are no exception. @jack, @ev, and @biz are celebrities and deservedly so. But you can't build a company all by yourself, or even as a trio. And Twitter has a relatively unsung near founder in @goldman who contributed so much to the company over the years.
At the end of the day, it takes a lot more than four people to build a company. And Ev's post today about Twitter says it so well. So I'll end with his eloquent comments about the team that built Twitter into what it is today:
Founders, in general, get an out-sized share of the credit for any successful company. There are hundreds of people at Twitter now, some of whom have been there for years and played critical roles. There are those whom you know by name and others you may never have heard of individually, but they have all contributed to the company’s success. I'd venture to say it's one of the finest teams ever assembled in the Internet industry, and it’s the accomplishment of which I’m most proud. Not just because they are people who are good at their jobs, but because they're good people.
When I was running the company, I felt very privileged that this amazing group had granted me leadership. (It practically brought me to tears on multiple occasions, during our all-hand's meetings, when someone demonstrated their unique and heartfelt awesomeness.) It was they who collectively helped Twitter mature from a quirky, wobbly toddler of a service with great potential but way too much attention for it's own good to an operation that is becoming—if not already has become in some areas—world class. And it is they who will take it to the next level, which will surprise us all.
