Ev Williams — The Art of Pivoting (e.g., Odeo to Twitter), Strategic Quitting, The Dangers of Premature Scaling, Must-Read Books, and More (#800)

“You can set a goal to run a marathon, and you can download a training regime, and you can go run the marathon. You can’t do that to invent the computer or Twitter or create amazing art. You can’t plot it. And to the extent you try to plot it, you shoot yourself in the foot because you cut off the possibilities that lie before you.”

— Ev Williams

Ev Williams (@ev) is the co-founder and chairman of Mozi, a new social network that helps you connect in person with the people you care about. Over the past 25 years, Ev has co-founded several companies that have helped shape the modern internet—including Blogger, Medium, and Twitter. Ev is also the co-founder of Obvious Ventures, an investment firm that focuses on world-positive companies addressing major systemic problems. Ev grew up on a farm in Clarks, Nebraska, has two sons, and lives mostly in the Bay Area.

This episode was recorded live at Diggnation (diggnation.show), where digg.com was relaunched. Digg was recently acquired by its original founder, my friend Kevin Rose, and reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and they invited me along for all the fun and surprises as they celebrated the relaunch. Go to digg.com and sign up to get early access when invites go out.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, or on your favorite podcast platform. The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

This episode is brought to you by David Protein Bars with 28g of protein, 150 calories, and 0g of sugar; Sundays for Dogs ultra-high-quality dog food; and Wealthfront high-yield cash account.

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Want to hear another fun live recording from Austin, TX? Check out my conversation with Kevin Rose:

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

• Connect with Ev Williams:

Obvious Ventures | Twitter | Medium | Instagram | Threads | LinkedIn

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Concepts

• Hackathon
• The Sunk Cost Fallacy
• Opportunity Cost
• Social Emotional Learning (SEL)
• Buddhism
• The Hoffman Process
• Mindfulness
• Transcendental Meditation (TM)
• Quantum Physics
• Monism
• Materialism
• Crossing the Rubicon

Companies & Institutions

• Mozi
• Blogger
• Medium
• Twitter
• Obvious Ventures
• Digg
• Facebook
• Odeo
• Google
• Uber
• Y Combinator
• OpenAI
• Plaxo
• Hoffman Institute

Technologies

• Text Messaging (40404 for Twitter)
• Video Home System (VHS)
• File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
• Terminal
• The World Wide Web (WWW)
• Usenet
• Gopher
• Blog
• Podcasts
• Flash
• Smartphones
• AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)
• The Way (Meditation App)
• Application Programming Interface (API)
• Really Simple Syndication (RSS)

Books

• Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away by Annie Duke
• Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts by Annie Duke
• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert M. Pirsig
• The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done by Peter F. Drucker
• Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective by Kenneth O. Stanley and Joel Lehman
• Fight Club
• The One: How an Ancient Idea Holds the Future of Physics by Heinrich Päs
• What’s Our Problem? A Self-Help Book for Societies by Tim Urban
• Little, Big: or, The Fairies’ Parliament by John Crowley
• All Fours: A Novel by Miranda July

Movies & Shows

• Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
• Fight Club

Events & Venues

• South by Southwest (SXSW)
• Diggnation
• Mohawk
• Stubb’s BBQ

People

• Kevin Rose
• Alexis Ohanian
• Biz Stone
• Annie Duke
• Jack Dorsey
• Hugh Forrest
• Robert Pirsig
• Peter Drucker
• Ken Stanley
• Joel Lehman
• Henry Shukman
• Dick Costolo
• Heinrich Päs
• James Joaquin
• Tim Urban
• John Crowley
• Miranda July

Relevant Resources

• A Journey on the Information Highway by Evan Williams (Speech) | James Clear
• Ev Williams’s Favorite Books | One Grand (Later republished in The New York Times as referenced in the conversation, but this version doesn’t have a paywall!)
• 25% of YC’s Latest Startups Are Letting AI Write 95% of Their Code — Here’s Why Devs Aren’t Obsolete Yet | Trendoo
• The Past, Present, and Future of Using Ketamine to Treat Depression | Smithsonian Magazine
• Ketamine Revealed as Matthew Perry’s Cause of Death — Here’s What to Know about the Drug | Forbes
• Blake Mycoskie — TOMS, The Hoffman Process, Conscious Uncoupling, and Psychedelics | The Tim Ferriss Show #446
• Ev Williams Is Finally Moving on from Twitter | Vox
• Ev Williams Was Lonely. He Doesn’t Want You to Be. | The New York Times
• The Tail End | Wait But Why
• Evan Williams Is Stepping Down as CEO of Medium | The New York Times
• Making “Social” Social Again by Ev Williams | Medium
• The Way App from Henry Shukman

SHOW NOTES

• [00:05:35] Kevin Rose starts the party like it’s 2004.
• [00:07:27] Ev’s first internet product.
• [00:08:54] How technology became social for Ev.
• [00:10:52] The simple idea behind Mozi.
• [00:12:05] Strategic quitting vs. sunk-cost perseverance.
• [00:18:36] How Odeo begat Twitter.
• [00:22:01] Twitter’s $11,000 SXSW 2007 inflection point.
• [00:23:45] Ev’s hopes for Mozi’s evolution.
• [00:25:02] Favorite books and information inputs.
• [00:30:45] Raising a generation to co-exist with AI.
• [00:33:12] Ev’s billboard.
• [00:35:56] How Ev learned to manage his feelings.
• [00:37:16] Facing strangers as an introvert with the Hoffman Process.
• [00:39:57] Recently adopted habits that have galvanized positive change.
• [00:42:44] The silver lining of being fired from Twitter.
• [00:45:18] Contemplating how the universe works with The One by Heinrich Päs.
• [00:47:04] How Ev stocks his reading list arsenal.
• [00:50:26] Big thoughts on a Medium regret.
• [00:52:47] Resisting the urge to bloat Mozi with superfluous features.
• [00:55:40] How Mozi balances privacy with utility.
• [00:57:40] Parting thoughts.

MORE EV WILLIAMS QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“You can set a goal to run a marathon, and you can download a training regime, and you can go run the marathon. You can’t do that to invent the computer or Twitter or create amazing art. You can’t plot it. And to the extent you try to plot it, you shoot yourself in the foot because you cut off the possibilities that lie before you.”
— Ev Williams

“The most creative force in the world is clearly nature, and it has no plan. It just tries shit.”
— Ev Williams

“I saw companies—in particular, products—as a creative process. It’s like writing a book or painting a painting: you have to figure it out as you go. You don’t have it fully baked in your head from day one.”
— Ev Williams

“Remember when social used to mean getting together in real life, getting to know people? And now social is just this catchall word that kind of just means the internet.”
— Ev Williams

“I think humans, fundamentally, were wired to be deeply social, but that wiring was way before screens. And that wiring to be social, it didn’t happen in public. So Mozi is a very simple idea where we said, ‘Well, what would an actual social network look like?’ That’s what we’re building.”
— Ev Williams

“I think this idea of it’s okay to quit is underappreciated.”
— Ev Williams

“You don’t know what else there is until you clear your attention away from the thing that you’ve been struggling with.”
— Ev Williams

“Creative ideation is useful no matter what you do, ever.”
— Ev Williams