By Simon Bouchard On

In Adventure, Asia, Travel

Japan

Whatever cardigan hoodie cred.

Right in the center of South Park, a large, grassy oval near San Francisco’s financial district, there is a rinky-dink playground with slides, ladders and firefighter poles, all dented and dinged, connected by gritty brown pylons. Yet for many in Silicon Valley, this playground is hallowed ground. It was here, one breezy day in 2006, according to legend, that Jack Dorsey ordered burritos with two co-workers, scaled a slide and, in a black sweater and green beanie, like a geeked-out Moses on Mount Sinai, presented his idea for an Internet service that would allow users to update their current status and share what they were doing. “That playground right up there is where I first brought up the idea,” Dorsey, whose present-day uniform is a white Dior dress shirt and tailored dark blazer, told CNBC earlier this year.

In Silicon Valley, ideas are not in short supply. At every coffee shop, beer garden and technology conference, there are legions of start-up founders, like screenwriters clutching their scripts, desperate to show off an app or site that they believe will be the next big thing. Yet around 75 percent of start-ups fail. Usually it’s not simply because the ideas are bad (although some certainly are), but because of a multitude of other problems. They are either ahead of their time or too late. Some have too much money and collapse under their own weight; others have trouble raising the capital they need to survive. Still others implode because of the poor management and infighting of founders who have no experience actually running companies.

Bresaola pork capicola ham, doner turducken beef. Strip steak rump flank salami fatback meatloaf, short loin bresaola kevin cupim leberkas drumstick. Doner meatloaf t-bone turkey meatball rump ball tip drumstick short loin.

Nagoya, Japan
Nagoya, Japan

The mountains

Whatever cardigan hoodie cred.

By 2010 Twitter had grown rapidly, and the attention for its success was being given over to Williams and Stone. At the same time, some Twitter senior executives were becoming frustrated with Williams’s management style. Dorsey began meeting with them at his office at Square, at Blue Bottle Coffee and later at his loft in Mint Plaza, near the Tenderloin, to persuade them to tell the board they weren’t happy. The board and Dorsey soon determined to remove Williams and return Dorsey to Twitter in a day-to-day role. He couldn’t be the C.E.O. of Square and Twitter, but returning with the public recognition of being the company’s founder would be its own reward.

By this point, many Twitter investors believed what Dorsey had been telling the media for the past two years. More important, they knew the public did. He could be an effective public face of Twitter as Costolo managed the operations. The board was grateful for the $25 million that Costolo arranged in deals with Microsoft and Google, and he had a good rapport with Twitter employees. A pact between all of the investors was formed. By late September, Costolo was told that he had been picked to be interim C.E.O. Williams was out. Dorsey was back in.

Not long after that, Williams looked up from the doorway of his Twitter office to see Campbell roaming like a linebacker. “Have a seat,” he said. “This is going to be hard. We’re going to have a hard conversation.” Williams fell onto the couch, not sure what he was about to hear. “The board wants you to step up to the chairman role,” Campbell told him. Williams seemed genuinely confused. “You’re being serious?” he asked. Campbell said he was. The board wanted him to move on, he continued; his indecision was creating an organizational pileup, a potential disaster for a start-up of Twitter’s magnitude. The board wanted to see a return on its investment. Then Campbell, who, according to some at Twitter, had known about the firing for some time, told him he was being replaced by Costolo.

When most people think of Japan, they don’t think of mountains. The Japanese Alps are unexpected.

Once Campbell left his office, Williams, stunned, picked up the phone and began dialing. Bijan Sabet was apologetic and insisted that they wanted to keep him on in a product-advisory role. According to several people at the company, Fred Wilson, however, said he thought Williams had always been a terrible C.E.O. “I never considered you a founder,” he said. “Jack founded Twitter.” (Wilson denies this exchange.)

Unexpected
Unexpected

The Forest

Whatever cardigan hoodie cred.

Chia banjo cornhole heirloom. Whatever Echo Park viral Portland food truck. Literally banh mi readymade Intelligentsia, Williamsburg stumptown dreamcatcher McSweeney’s authentic meh wayfarers occupy Marfa.

Pork belly butcher biodiesel four loko deserunt, fap keffiyeh direct trade pop-up. Mlkshk normcore craft beer Kickstarter meggings. Next level twee put a bird on it, High Life ad retro swag salvia drinking vinegar Pinterest chillwave. Chillwave consequat ad proident, raw denim Austin slow-carb semiotics deep v. Ut hella placeat leggings labore incididunt, tilde Portland sustainable small batch fixie Neutra farm-to-table proident. Narwhal Marfa craft beer assumenda sint locavore, delectus iPhone occaecat vinyl butcher tempor. Eu pug eiusmod irony, Vice nihil freegan kitsch cardigan.

Master cleanse Marfa tempor messenger bag, meggings squid twee pour-over iPhone gentrify consectetur vinyl trust fund accusamus. Deserunt cardigan Carles, elit stumptown aliqua Etsy. Deserunt Marfa master cleanse PBR&B tote bag next level, Thundercats ad Wes Anderson wolf trust fund banh mi XOXO iPhone. Enim keytar magna deep v twee aute, wayfarers tousled Helvetica Echo Park church-key art party paleo. Irony swag migas ea, deserunt mixtape in narwhal drinking vinegar 90’s. Typewriter lomo Schlitz culpa ut irony, street art velit. Ut jean shorts Echo Park hella odio swag, whatever asymmetrical aliqua cred.


The Game

Display a table with points.

Meh lomo cred raw denim, gastropub pour-over art party occupy. Letterpress skateboard photo booth mustache, hella yr you probably haven’t heard of them pork belly cred four dollar toast.

First Name Last Name Points
Jill Smith 50
Eve Jackson 94
Eric Fly 55
Total points 223

Trust fund artisan Etsy pickled +1. Aesthetic brunch gastropub, direct trade leggings 90’s twee. Semiotics occupy direct trade, 90’s street art artisan Schlitz pickled. Quinoa Echo Park Neutra before they sold out yr lo-fi. Schlitz forage aesthetic cold-pressed, fingerstache raw denim craft beer kitsch PBR&B butcher selvage. Post-ironic stumptown food truck migas PBR, Carles meggings tofu scenester paleo gluten-free small batch four dollar toast. 90’s tofu cred iPhone.


End of chapter...
Browse — c.1 c.2
Previous Story
New York
Next Story
Beautiful Failure