Co-Founder of Blogger, Twitter, Medium, and Mozi — The Art of Pivoting, Strategic Quitting, and More

Here are the top 10 key takeaways from Ev Williams' conversation with Tim Ferriss, offering invaluable insights on innovation, personal growth, and building successful products that can transform both your career and life.

1. Strategic quitting can be more valuable than blind perseverance

Ev Williams highlights the underappreciated concept of knowing when to quit. He shares how with Odeo (a podcasting company), he realized he no longer believed in the vision and chose to pivot rather than persevere. This decision ultimately led to the creation of Twitter.

Williams recommends Annie Duke's book "Quit," which explores why people continue projects longer than they should. The biggest reason is underestimating opportunity costs—you don't know what else is possible until you clear your attention from what isn't working. If something consistently feels like a slog, quitting may be the best choice.

2. Greatness cannot be planned through direct goals

Williams enthusiastically recommends the book "Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned" by Ken Stanley. The book challenges the conventional wisdom of setting goals and making plans to achieve them. While this approach works for established achievements like running a marathon, it fails when trying to create something truly innovative.

The book argues that trying to plot a direct path to innovation actually limits possibilities. Evolution, the most creative force in nature, operates without a plan—it simply tries various approaches. Williams found this perspective liberating during his time at Medium, helping him embrace the ambiguity of not knowing exactly where a creative project will lead.

3. Build products for yourself, not just for others

A key principle Williams has learned repeatedly is the importance of building products he personally wants to use. With Odeo, he realized he wasn't passionate about podcasting and didn't use the product himself. This lack of personal connection made it difficult to sustain his commitment.

In contrast, with projects like Blogger, he believed deeply in the vision throughout the journey. This personal investment helped him persevere through difficult times. Williams suggests this approach—creating solutions for problems you personally experience—leads to more authentic and sustainable innovation.

4. Innovation often emerges from unexpected places

The story of Twitter's creation illustrates how innovation rarely follows a linear path. Twitter wasn't born from a grand vision but emerged from a two-week internal hackathon at Odeo after the company decided to pivot away from podcasting. The concept evolved organically from various explorations around messaging and status updates.

What began as an idea to record voice messages that would be broadcast as text evolved into a text-only platform with subscription features inspired by RSS feeds. The team found the concept intriguing even with just ten users. This illustrates how major innovations often start as small experiments that evolve through iteration rather than from predetermined plans.

5. Feeling your feelings is fundamental to personal growth

Williams confesses that he once told his therapist he didn't understand the point of feelings, viewing them as nuisances that got in the way. His journey toward emotional awareness represents one of his most significant personal transformations.

He describes various practices that helped him develop emotional intelligence: therapy, psychedelics, meditation, reading, fostering friendships, and temporarily stopping alcohol consumption. When asked what message he'd put on a billboard for everyone to see, his suggestions centered on emotional healing—emphasizing that personal healing is fundamental to addressing larger issues like climate change.

6. Consistent meditation creates compound benefits

Williams describes how at the beginning of 2024, he committed to meditating every single day of the year. He found that the consistency of this practice created benefits he hadn't anticipated. Using the analogy that "you can't boil water if you keep turning off the flame," he notes how his meditation deepened much more quickly with daily practice.

Rather than using transcendental meditation, Williams practices mindfulness meditation focused on breath and awareness. He sometimes incorporates "noting" techniques. The consistency of his practice demonstrates how habits that initially seem like small commitments can create significant compound effects over time.

7. Balance technology with real human connection

Williams reflects on how the meaning of "social" has evolved with technology. Originally referring to in-person gatherings, the term has become a generic label for internet platforms. He notes the irony that he, coming from rural Nebraska with limited social connections, focused on information and ideas rather than relationships in his early technology ventures.

This realization led to Mosey, his newest venture focused on helping people discover where their friends are and facilitating real-world meetings. Williams emphasizes that humans evolved to be social in physical spaces, not behind screens. Mosey aims to be a truly social platform—not focused on media, advertising, or status-building, but on meaningful connections.

8. Exercise and meditation are fundamental life improvements

When asked about habits that have positively impacted his life, Williams emphasizes two fundamentals: exercise and meditation. He notes that during early COVID, approaching age 50, he realized he needed to work much harder to stay in shape. Starting these practices created positive reward cycles that reinforced their continuation.

The simplicity of this advice reflects Williams' practical approach. Rather than searching for novel or trendy solutions, he found tremendous value in committing more seriously to these well-established practices. His experience suggests that sometimes the most effective self-improvement strategies are the ones most people already know but haven't fully committed to.

9. Failures can lead to unexpected opportunities

Williams shares his experience of being fired as CEO of Twitter—a devastating blow to his ego and identity at the time. What initially felt like an enormous failure and injustice eventually revealed itself as a blessing. He acknowledges that his replacement was better at certain aspects of the job, and the experience triggered important personal reflection and growth.

This experience illustrates how our immediate reactions to perceived failures often blind us to potential benefits. Williams notes that much of his unhappiness came from thinking things shouldn't be how they are—a form of resistance that created suffering. This perspective aligns with many philosophical traditions that emphasize acceptance as a path to peace.

10. Social-emotional skills are increasingly valuable

When asked what skills young people should develop in an AI-dominated future, Williams emphasized two areas: reading/writing and social-emotional learning. He values writing not just for the final product but for how it clarifies thinking. Even if AI can produce text, the process of writing helps humans develop ideas and gain clarity.

Williams also highlights the importance of social-emotional skills—how to connect with people. He notes that his children's school teaches "SEL" (social-emotional learning), something that wasn't available during his rural Nebraska upbringing. As technology advances, these distinctly human capabilities for connection may become increasingly valuable and differentiating.