One of Twitter's earliest leaders helped name the company and was gone before most people had heard of it — pushed out, and for years erased from the story of the thing he helped create.
Twitter is a paradigm case of founder erasure. A person central to the company's creation was removed early and largely deleted from its public history, while credit consolidated around a single, more marketable founder.
Noah Glass and Evan Williams build Odeo, a podcasting startup, in San Francisco. Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone are among the team. Odeo raises venture funding led by Charles River Ventures.1
Twitter is spun out of Obvious Corporation as its own company, with Jack Dorsey as CEO and Williams as chairman/financier. The public founding narrative increasingly centers on Dorsey.2
Noah Glass and Evan Williams build Odeo, a podcasting startup, in San Francisco. Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone are among the team. Odeo raises venture funding led by Charles River Ventures.
Apple adds podcasting to iTunes, largely obviating Odeo's product and prompting Williams to ask the team to brainstorm new ideas.
Noah Glass co-founded Odeo and ran the early twttr project. He is widely credited with naming 'Twitter.'
Glass was central to Twitter's creation and naming, was fired as the project succeeded, and was then deliberately or carelessly deleted from the story while others took the credit.
2 supporting itemsIn a failing company being restructured, leadership and credit shifted amid personal conflicts; Glass's removal, on this framing, was part of ordinary (if painful) startup upheaval rather than a targeted erasure.
1 supporting itemsThe core status-update idea came from Jack Dorsey. The name and much early momentum came from Noah Glass.
The status-update concept — the essence of Twitter — was Dorsey's, making him its inventor.
1 supporting itemsTwitter is best understood as a team creation with four co-founders; singling out any one 'inventor' distorts what actually happened.
2 supporting itemsThe team lands on the name — 'twitter,' meaning a short burst of inconsequential information and the chirps of birds — rendered vowel-less as 'twttr.' Noah Glass is widely credited with the name.
In 'How Twitter Was Born,' Sagolla describes the brainstorming, the naming session, and the early team dynamics from inside Odeo. (Placeholder summary; direct quotes to be attached.)
Jack Dorsey posts 'just setting up my twttr' at 9:50 p.m. — the first message on the service, built as a prototype by Dorsey and contractor Florian Weber.
twttr is released to the public. It is still a project inside Odeo/Obvious, run in significant part by Noah Glass.
“That Jack Dorsey created/invented Twitter — a framing that dominated public understanding for years and that, by several accounts, Dorsey actively encouraged.”
Reporting establishes Twitter as a team creation: Dorsey supplied the core status-update idea, but Noah Glass named it and drove its early development, Florian Weber built the prototype, and Williams controlled the company. Dorsey's sole-creator framing overstated his role and understated Glass's.
Twitter is spun out of Obvious Corporation as its own company, with Jack Dorsey as CEO and Williams as chairman/financier. The public founding narrative increasingly centers on Dorsey.
Dorsey is removed as CEO; Williams takes over. Twitter's founder-vs-board turbulence begins in earnest — a pattern that will repeat.
“'I started Twitter.' Glass has asserted his central, largely erased role in creating and naming the service.”
Later accounts broadly corroborate that Glass named Twitter and was central to its early days, and now commonly list him among the four co-founders — a substantial validation of his claim, if not of the word 'started' alone.
Noah Glass co-founded Odeo and ran the early twttr project. He is widely credited with naming 'Twitter.'
Glass was central to Twitter's creation and naming, was fired as the project succeeded, and was then deliberately or carelessly deleted from the story while others took the credit.
2 supporting itemsIn a failing company being restructured, leadership and credit shifted amid personal conflicts; Glass's removal, on this framing, was part of ordinary (if painful) startup upheaval rather than a targeted erasure.
1 supporting itemsNick Bilton's book reconstructs the founding in detail, restoring Noah Glass to the story and portraying the power struggles among the four founders — the fullest public correction of the record.
Twitter's IPO makes its recognized founders and investors wealthy. Noah Glass, long gone, does not share meaningfully in the outcome.
Musk buys Twitter for about $44 billion and takes it private, later rebranding it 'X' — retiring the name and bird that trace back to the founding-era team.
“Twitter's creation popularly attributed to Jack Dorsey; Noah Glass largely absent.”
Archived capture, 2007–2010“'The forgotten/lost co-founder': Glass restored to the story and named among the four co-founders.”
Archived capture, 2011–2013Twitter's history is a chain of founder upheavals: Glass fired and erased (2006), Dorsey ousted (2008) and Williams ousted (2010), Dorsey's return (2015), and finally the company's sale and rebranding out of existence as 'X.' The forgotten-founder thread — Noah Glass — remains its most human and most instructive.
Add your firsthand account, evidence, or context to this history. Your version goes on the record alongside the others; nothing already recorded is overwritten.
This record currently includes 9 sources and firsthand accounts from 2 of 6 early participants. Last reviewed 12 August 2026.