The person who first called Twitter “Twitter” must be raking in millions of dollars these days, right? Not so much. Noah Glass (@noah), an integral part of the service’s founding and the guy who came up with one of the world’s most famous company names, was ousted long ago. When the Twitter story is casually recounted as a creation myth, his name is often left out.
So, what’s the real story?
Who Is Noah Glass?
After working at Industrial Light and Magic, Glass was a co-founder of Odeo, the failed podcasting company that formed an unlikely bridge to Twitter. Odeo CEO Ev Williams put Glass in charge of the social messaging project Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone were instrumental in conceiving.
Glass undertook the assignment with a passion as a true believer in Twitter’s potential. But, by 2006, when the social media platform launched, Williams fired him. Dorsey reportedly approached Williams about Glass’s dismissal, but the working relationship between Williams and Glass had strained due to differences in personality and work style.
What Dorsey Said
In an excellent 2013 profile of Dorsey, D.T. Max wrote:
Read a complete history of Twitter’s early days in Nick Bilton’s highly recommended Hatching Twitter.
Subsequent years saw Glass come away with stock and a small amount of cash, but not much else as Twitter has grown.
What Noah Glass Said
Glass told Business Insider:
Noah Glass Today
Today, Noah Glass lives in San Francisco with his family. He’s currently working on “projects that could be something big if they get fleshed out,” he told Business Insider. His Twitter account—with “I started this” as his bio—hasn’t been updated since September 2013. His last Tweet?
I do know that without me, Twitter wouldn’t exist. In a huge way.
For his part, Williams took to Twitter to acknowledge Glass’s contributions in 2011:
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