emily: he got his start as an improv comedian. when comedy could not pay the bills, he moved back to coding. he took a chance on a startup getting an unusual amount of attention. the startup invented the tweet. it is now a $30 billion public company. subject to the whims of wall street. joining me is twitter ceo dick

costolo. twitter has 300 million users. 500 million tweets. hilarious, illuminating. dick: mine are always hilarious. emily: some world changing. how do you deal with that on a daily basis? dick: i don't have to read them all. it doesn't affect me personally. the fascinating thing about the platform is how it is used around the world. the surprising moments that surface on the platform you have never thought about have not even occurred to you. emily: the number of users has quadrupled since you became ceo. it is one of the most mainstream companies in the world. dick: we have never been

scrutinized. emily: did you ever think you would be here when you were growing up in detroit? dick: not at all. i was very much, i was kind of, i just took life as it happened. most of my family was in the automobile industry. my dad's dad worked for chrysler. i only applied to university of michigan. i didn't go look at schools. when people say, what happened if you weren't going to university of michigan, that implies i had some sort of strategy. emily: luckily you got in. dick: my dad did get me a radioshack computer. i learned to program in basic.

by the time i went to michigan, i did know i'm going to study commuter science. i didn't know what to do beyond that. emily: when you got to university michigan, you took theater classes. dick: i had like eight arts credits. i thought, what is the thing i can take that will be the least amount of homework so i can focus on my operating systems class? i figured acting. i will show up and say some lines. coincidently, my first semester, senior year, i started doing standup at the student union. by my second, senior year, it was like, i am having a lot of fun with this. i decided, i am not going to take any of the programming jobs i have been offered. i'm going to try to go to chicago and study at second city. emily: you worked with steve carell.

dick: rachel dratch became a friend of mine. emily: why did you stop? dick: i didn't get any of the things i auditioned for. i decided, i had to figure out how to make money. emily: i imagine people screaming at you. i wonder if improv is good training for wall street? dick: when you are improvising, people are yelling at the stage. i did this show. about three minutes in, these drunk australians started yelling, you suck. emily: you went into consulting. dick: this is 1993. i remember a domain for anderson consulting. we went off and started one of the first web design and development shops. sold that.

started working on what ended up being an early group based -- we did not call it blogging. and then started an alerts platform. we sold that in 2000. a one-year restriction on the stock and sale. my birthday is september 10. i had a weird set of days, thinking, in two days, the stock lockup expires. we are going to have this financial situation i have never been in before which will be great for us. the next morning was 9/11. by the time 9/12 rolled around, the stock markets were closed. that made a profound impact on me. i thought on my birthday, that is it. everything is great. i don't have to work again. and then the next day,

everybody's world changed. the next week, i remember thinking, everything that is possibly true can be changed in an instant. i really mean it when i say, since then, i have had the attitude of, who cares? i know everything can change in an instant. emily: you went on to start feed burner. dick: we sold out to google. that is where i got reconnected to ev williams who i've been talking to. we have -- emily: a cofounder of twitter. how did he get you to come to twitter? 2009? dick: i had left google and was going to start another company.

i got a private message on twitter from him. he said, i'm going to take a paternity leave. would you be willing to sort of help out here for a bit while i am off? with operational stuff? i said, sure. after that conversation started, he said, what if it was more permanent? what if you became coo? i felt like those opportunities don't come along very often. emily: it felt like a rocket ship. dick: it didn't have any revenue. i think there were 50 people when i joined. emily: mark zuckerberg described twitter as a clown car that fell into a gold mine.

what was it like for you getting into that car? [laughter] dick: just because mark zuckerberg described it that way doesn't mean that is what it is. emily: how would you describe it? dick: a remarkable simple idea that became the broadcast platform for the world. the great insight we had was instead of having ads or stuff to the side, let's make the monetization engine part of what everyone is already doing. that turned out to be something that frankly lots of other companies including facebook have taken from us and used to great success. you like the way i spun that around? they are the copier. [laughter]

emily: i do want to ask you one question. ev williams stepped out in 2010. you became ceo. what actually happened? [laughter] dick: i am not going to go into all the details, palace intrigue stuff. i will say there's a lot that has been written about it. some you read and think, that is interesting. i don't remember that person even being in the same city we were in. it is what it is. here we are. we work well together now. jack and ev are on the board. they run successful companies in their own right.

emily: how often do you talk to them? dick: we have dinner once a week at zuni cafe. emily: good chicken. dick: i am walking around doing commercials for zuni cafe right now. we talk regularly. we are trying to figure out when we can get dinner next week. emily: do you feel like you have their support? dick: the short answer is yes. jack thinks about the product, he has insights that come at it from a different angle. ev always has this really firm grounding in the user. that has gotten him where he is. running his third successful company. emily: what are you doing to improve the core experience for the user?

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emily: tales of great founders and ceos all are boiled down to legend. dick: the problem is, people create this mythology about people. the reality is, everybody has one or two superpowers. and then lots of flaws. emily: what is your superpower? dick: i am present inside the company. anybody in the company will feel like they can talk to me. there is no, don't tell him that. we do a good job of getting at the truth. emily: people ask, where is twitter going? nobody said that about facebook.

dick: the challenge we have is the distance between awareness of twitter and engagement. people say, i don't get why i would use it so i do not get what it is for. i feel it is the best way to connect in real-time with what is happening in your world. things like live, in the moment, this is an amazing thing i am watching right now. live broadcasting, live video. those are the future of the platform. i think that is the future of the platform. emily: there used to be concerns about how they would make money. now it is pretty good at it. dick: in 2009, 2010, 2011, there is no way you will ever make it. that was not just a concern. yeah, but it can't make money. we did a good job proving that

wrong. emily: now the concern is about user growth and product innovation. what are you doing to improve the core user experience? dick: you no longer have to find 80-90 accounts to get a great twitter experience. we deliver you an instant timeline based on where you are, the things you have said you are interested in. we make it that simple, when you come to the platform, you see those right away. emily: there are companies that do messaging only or video only. what makes you think twitter can be all of these. dick: this happens to me. i will see something that has been publicly broadcast and we want to have a private conversation. one thing i am excited about, super extraordinarily excited about, it is so easy.

it will open up all these remarkable avenues for people to feel like they are teleporting into a moment across the world. the longform possibilities are limitless. the short form possibilities. think about ferguson, occupy central, the plane in the hudson as now being a live broadcast. it will be extraordinary, super fun, and develop new medias for performers, shows, content. i think it will change the entire media landscape. emily: by some measures, instagram is bigger than twitter. why should wall street believe this is not a plateau? dick: we at the company believe in twitter. emily: why is it hard to find

the right product team? dick: it is important for me to be thinking about whether this is the right team for the company right now. i tell my managers, your job is to improve your team, not defend your team. one of the reasons i am excited about the team we have right now is because i believe it is the best possible team for the company at the moment. i believe we have made all the hard choices we needed to make to put them together. emily: how long is it going to last? dick: you can't ever say, this is the exact team for this many months or years. you have to be evaluating things constantly. what you cannot do is leave the pitcher in too long.

emily: how does not being a founder affect your ability to lead? ♪

emily: we mentioned the guys in the front row at improv comedy saying, you suck. dick: keeping in mind that was three minutes into a one hour show. emily: in one of the most high profile and scrutinized jobs in the world, some people say -- dick: you suck, get off. emily: how do you deal with that when people say that? dick: i got invited to something a couple of years ago. my daughter said, you should go. i said, i don't think i will because i got invited because of what i am, not who i am.

i have always tried to make sure i have never paid too much attention to the ceo of the year. the worst ceo of the year stuff is right around the corner. i don't get worked up or care too much when people say those things. i have had to make myself care a little bit about them only after i started realizing, it could affect recruiting if people start thinking, i want to go to twitter but what if dick is not there and everything changes? i need to start paying attention to that. say, that is not the case. emily: how does not being a founder affect your ability to lead? dick: jack dorsey can sit here and you can ask, what were you first thinking about when you invented twitter. you can be a non-founder ceo and

have thoughtful opinions and even certainty about where something needs to be taken that is helpful to the company. when jack saw vine, loved it and it knew it right away, we were both, we have to do this. i felt the same way when jess on my team talked about periscope. right away, we were like, we have to make it part of the company. my daughter said, i have bad news and good news. there is an article that says, you are one of the worst five ceos of 2014. the good news is, you are number five. i hope that is a lesson i have taught them about how not to get carried away. emily: i hope you will tell me about beekeeping.

dick: the cool thing about the bees, i spend most of my time watching them. the way the hive works. what is going on. the crazy stuff that happens as the seasons change. the way they build and everything is fascinating. emily: you bring honey to the office. dick: to some people. there is not an infinite supply. emily: what is next for dick costolo? dick: like when i grew up in detroit, i'm taking life as it comes to me. i am a big proponent of living in the moment and not getting caught up in the past or thinking too much about where i'm going to be two years from now. i do not think that is a good way to live.

sometimes, like in the case of ev, making a decision to do that, i think that is a good and fun way to live. i tried to teach my kids the same way. emily: a good way to be as the ceo of twitter. dick: education, we are always thinking, we have to do this to get into that school. you are being trained to meet and exceed expectations. then you go out in the world and there are no expectations, just life. i try to teach my kids, life is not always meeting and exceeding expectations. it is about being present for yourselves and your friends. those end up being great people. emily: thanks for joining us. it is great to have you. ♪

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