Twitter’s ascendance made its founders cultural models of entrepreneurial success in the Bay Area

Evidence

My fieldwork took place during a period when Twitter was transitioning from an early adopter user base to a mainstream social media tool. During this time, Twitter was omnipresent. I missed out on social events and gossip because I didn’t check Twitter. The service was discussed at conferences, at dinner, and in almost every conversation I had, about technology or otherwise. Interviews were peppered with references to Twitter: how it was used, how people thought it should be used, its benefits and drawbacks, and where people believed it would go in the future. When I asked interview subjects what technology they thought was hot, virtually everyone answered, “Twitter.” Not only was Twitter a San Francisco company whose early adopters were members of the tech scene, its founders, Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey, were held up as model entrepreneurs because the site had achieved rapid success, remained independent, and would presumably make the founders very wealthy. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 209

Categorization

• XREF: Founder-as-celebrity motif connects to the later ‘founder worship’ culture and to status dynamics analyzed throughout the book. — connects to: Web 2.0 repackaged American mythologies like rags-to-riches entrepreneurship into startup culture — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 22; Micro-celebrity is a learned status practice rooted in Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial values — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 314; Social media made tech founders cultural heroes where utility software never did — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 275 (+2 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 209

Broader Connections

• Web 2.0 repackaged American mythologies like rags-to-riches entrepreneurship into startup culture #corroborates (0.85) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 22
• Social media made tech founders cultural heroes where utility software never did #corroborates (0.80) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 275
• Micro-celebrity is a learned status practice rooted in Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial values #qualifies (0.72) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 314
• Hustle culture borrowed athletic grind rhetoric and spread through social media bragging #exemplifies (0.72) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 315