I originally wrote a review about Hatching Twitter on my personal blog called That Place in My Head. But with Jade’s new Tech Girl Book Club I thought I’d share some thoughts on the book about the creating of one of the most popular social networks. Hatching Twitter is written by Nick Bilton, a journalist at the New York Times, who spent a considerable amount of time collecting and curating conversations, email threads, tweets (yes, really), text message recordings and news reports surrounding Twitter and its birth as well as how it grew in to what it is today.
The book reads like a novel and is touted as “a true story of money, power, friendship and betrayal.” It reads a bit like that as well. I’m currently going through a difficult time in trying to determine who my “real” friends are. I feel like a lot of people who I labelled friends were really just riding my coat tails and abusing my good nature. I think success has a way of weeding out the negative and unhappy people you may have accidentally surrounded yourself with. Because some people just don’t like seeing others do well.
All those thoughts and feelings are housed in this book. You’ll read about the relationship between the 4 founders of the social giant as the story works itself around Evan Williams, Biz Stone, Jack Dorsey and Noah Glass. I love how Bilton doesn’t sugarcoat this one. You’ll read about the deals and drama in the Twitter boardroom, how even the founders admitted at one point that the platform was held together with sticks and glue and how the best of friends will turn on each other when money is on the table.
Hatching Twitter also gives you a look in to the workings of Silicon Valley and how the demise of one friend may equal the rise of the other. It’s political, its dramatic and it bases itself on fact.
If you’re a fan of the digital world and the rise of social networks you’ll love Hatching Twitter.
