Twitter CEO shares story with journalism, computer students

When Evan Williams was a student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1992, he would put off his Keller Plan courses until the last minute.

Today, Williams is a nationally recognized guru of all things fast on the Internet.

Williams, founder and chief executive officer of the Web site Twitter, spent a year-and-a-half at UNL before dropping out.

He returned to campus on Friday to give two talks and answer questions from about 250 students at the Raikes School of Computer Science and Management and the College of Journalism and Mass Communications.

"I went (to UNL) because it seemed like something to do at the time," Williams said. "But I always knew that college wasn't for me."

After leaving UNL, Williams moved to Florida and did freelance copywriting before moving back to Nebraska, where he started making something of himself in cyberspace. He has created six Internet companies including Twitter, Blogger and Pyra Labs.

Evan's father, Monte Williams, said he was slightly worried when Evan decided to drop out of UNL and move to Florida, but he supported his son and even provided Evan with an old van to take with him.

"I never doubted him," Monte said of his son. "But I'm surprised he got this big this quick."

In the mid-1990s, Williams moved to California and eventually landed a job as a product manager at Google.

He also met his wife Sara at Google. The morning of his visit to UNL, he tweeted that he met his wife five years ago that day.

"It's laid back and it's not laid back," Williams said of the atmosphere in California's Silicon Valley. "It's casual in your interactions with people but intense in terms of what you're trying to get done."

Coming from a farm in Clarks, Williams said his Nebraskan work ethic helped him when he got to California. In some ways, he was just being naïve, but he had a "hallucinogenic optimism" and didn't think about failure.

In 2007, Twitter was created. Twitter is a social networking site where people respond to a very simple question: "What are you doing?" Responses ("tweets") are limited to 140 characters and people can "follow" other people with Twitter accounts.

Williams said originally he envisioned the company would be a way for people to stay connected with friends and family, but lately politicians, musicians and other celebrities have embraced Twitter as a way for them to stay in touch with their constituents or fans.

On Friday, Williams talked to UNL students about everything from skills they should learn while in college, to factors Williams would consider before deciding to sell one of his companies and who his favorite person to "follow" on Twitter is.

Williams said he likes to follow a Twitter co-founder named Biz, his wife and P. Diddy on Twitter.  

Ariel Kohen, a tech savvy political science assistant professor at UNL, encouraged his students to follow him on both Twitter and other social networking sites.

"It's another way to communicate w/me. And I often post about class topics, so they might even learn something outside the classroom," Kohen tweeted to the Daily Nebraskan from his BlackBerry on Saturday night.    

In another tweet Kohen said: "Right now, several of my students follow me; as a matter of etiquette, I don't follow back in case they want to complain about me!"

As the number of online bloggers increases and news stories become easier and easier to find on the Web without paying for a subscription to a daily newspaper, some news organizations are buckling under financial pressure.

"When it's easier and more efficient to share information (with) more people that's better," Williams said. "I think society will find a way to support (journalism), but it's not going to be like it was. There's not going to be as many people getting paid to do journalism. So many people are willing to publish articles for free."

Williams said people in the news business can look at his work as either a threat or a compliment to their own profession.

Williams was back in Lincoln to visit his dad, and said he stopped by UNL because someone asked him to. He hadn't been back to the university in nearly 20 years.

He said he was surprised by the attention he received and made it clear that he wasn't making a campus visit to spread an important message.

Rather, the 37-year-old entrepreneur just wanted to share a mantra that has served him well so far: "Go with your gut."

ryanboetel@dailynebraskan.com