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Updated 8.23am
TWITTER WILL FLOAT on the stock exchange late today and it is going to make some people very rich.
It set a higher-than-expected price of $26 per share for its initial public offering last night and will begin trading later today under the ticker symbol “TWTR”.
This price values Twitter at more than $18 billion based on its outstanding stock, options and restricted stock expected to be available after the IPO. Facebook Inc.’s value, meanwhile, stood at $104 billion at the time of its IPO.
Regardless, this will still net a lot of cash for some of the foremost figures in Twitter, but who and how much?
We can make some estimations based on Twitter’s latest filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission which contains information on some of its primary shareholders.
EVAN WILLIAMS, CO-FOUNDER, @ev
A former Nebraska farm boy, Williams has been variously described as deliberate, indecisive, taciturn, brilliant and even unscrupulous by those who believe he shoved aside Jack Dorsey and Noah Glass to consolidate his power.
Williams, 41, emerged as Twitter’s largest shareholder by seizing an opportunity that arose as his podcasting startup, Odeo, foundered.
Williams replaced Jack Dorsey as Twitter’s CEO in October 2008 and then stepped aside himself two years later when he turned over the reins to Dick Costolo. Williams remains on Twitter’s board. If you follow him on Twitter, you’ll notice he spends a lot of time mulling a wide variety of subjects while mixing in a dry sense of humor.
JACK DORSEY, CO-FOUNDER and CHAIRMAN, @jack
It has been an incredible turn of events for a former punk rocker who used to wear a nose ring and once considered giving up computer programming to become a fashion designer.
Dorsey, 36, is so impeccably groomed now that he is considered among the best-dressed men in technology.
He has been a Silicon Valley sensation as Twitter’s chairman and as CEO of a mobile payment processor called Square. He is frequently touted as the next Steve Jobs, a comparison he hasn’t tried to discourage while also positioning himself for a possible political career. He has said he would eventually like to be mayor of New York, where he once lived.
Although Dorsey has been Twitter’s chairman since 2008, his power has been limited by a concession he made when he relinquished the CEO job to Williams that same year. As part of that change in command, Dorsey handed over the voting rights of his Twitter stock to Williams. Dorsey will regain those rights once Twitter’s IPO is completed.
DICK COSTOLO, CEO, @dickc
It took a joker to turn Twitter into a serious business. Although Twitter still hasn’t made any money, at least its revenue is rising at an impressive rate, something that couldn’t be said until Costolo joined the company as chief operating officer in 2009. Within a year, the former stand-up comic from Chicago had replaced Evan Williams as CEO.
When Costolo took charge in 2010, Twitter’s revenue was $28 million. This year, it’s on track to be more than $600 million. Yet Twitter’s losses are also mounting, mainly because Costolo has been spending lots of money to prepare for what he hopes will be years of steady growth.
This is the fourth company that Costolo has helped build since leaving the stage as a comic. The three previous startups that he helped found and run all were sold. That includes FeedBurner, which Google bought for about $100 million in 2007.
Costolo, 50, still unleashes one-liners at Twitter’s weekly “Tea Time” sessions with employees. His wisecracks also surface in his Twitter posts, and one of them recently ruffled some feathers.
BIZ STONE, CO-FOUNDER, @biz
The Twitter co-founder is missing entirely from Twitter’s SEC filing. Some reports state that he sold many of his early shares and could end up earning just 1 per cent of Williams’s windfall.
The self-described dork has a gift for gab that made him Twitter’s most visible face while he worked the TV talk show circuit and handled most of the media during the company’s early years.
Stone, 39, moved from Boston to Silicon Valley a decade ago primarily to work at Google with Williams, whom Stone once hailed as “the only person to consistently help me get the most out of my own brain and abilities.”
In 2005, Stone followed Williams to Odeo and then helped arrange the deal that spun out Twitter in October 2006 so it could be bought by Obvious. Twitter became its own company in 2007. Stone left Twitter in 2011 to join Williams at Obvious.
Stone is now working on a startup called Jelly Industries, which is believed to be working a system that will answer questions posed on mobile devices.
PETER FENTON, DIRECTOR, @peterfenton
Peter Fenton is a venture capitalist who first invested in Twitter when it had only 25 employees. His firm Benchmark Capital owns 5.8 per cent of the company. It is not belived Fenton will receive all the financial rewards from the share but is named on the SEC filing because he is a Twitter board member.
Additional reporting and all images by Associated Press.
Originally published 23.18pm
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There choice to get sent there….
@Paul: Is it a choice to have the neurological disorder ADHD, a condition that affects impulsivity, causes those affected to act first and think later (32%). Is it a choice to have a mental health problem (55%)? Is it a choice to have a learning disability (36%) or learning difficulty (22% i.e. an IQ below 70)? Is it a choice to be at risk of neglect or abuse (47%)? Is it a choice to be born into a background of poverty or criminality?
@David Jordan: all very well but the vast majority of people in the world diagnosed with these issues and have steered clear of the wrong side of the law. So by your reasoning does it mean that the other ones in there are just simply bad people or shall we draw up an excuse for each and everyone. If it were the case that their mental health problems/learning disabilities/learning difficulty reduced their mental age capacity or hampered it in a way they could not differentiate between right and wrong they tm would not be in a facility like Oberstown. Oberstown is for criminals under the age of 18. Would you be signing off the same hymn sheet if they had robbed your car or held a knife to your mother’s throat and took her pension?
@Paul: absolutely, just like it was your choice not to be educated. The word is spelled ‘Their’.
I’ll elaborate…. look at those vulnerable children over (there)’. (They’re) alone in (their) rooms without any parental guidance through no fault of their own.
3 versions of the same sounding word.
Seems your lack of education is not solely limited to poor spelling. Perhaps research what the potential effects of broken homes, abusive parents, alcohol related issues, lack of parental support etc have in young children.
Hope you receive the help you need (Night classes perhaps?), just as I hope these children receive the help they themselves need.
@David Jordan:
And just so we are clear ADHD can sometimes (not always) affect impulsivity. It’s more to do with an inability to maintain persistent attention to tasks etc along with hyperactivity, hence the name. It’s far too easy nowadays to throw out a few letters and dismiss people’s actions as a result.
@Paul: *their
@Paul: “Their”
@David Jordan: The most serious well known disorder that these kids suffer from is BOLD.
@David Jordan: oh and to your last line maybe we should start looking at that and that decisions should be taken brfore the birth of a child to determine whether prospective parents(s) have the required “where with all” to safely bring up a child.
Never ceases to amaze me that people can be so sympathetic to children in abusive and non-loving homes but as soon as those children reach an age of about 14 all that sympathy goes straight out the window.
Small children that don’t get the same start in life that others take for granted WILL grow up to be potentially criminals. They don’t just suddenly “learn” the right way to function in society if they’ve never been taught.
And yet there seems to be a distinct reticence by many to fund early intervention and parental assistance. There seems to be a feeling that the parents don’t deserve help with the added bonus of the child grows into an adult that “doesn’t deserve help”.
And so the wheel turns.
@Tricia Golden: Many of these teenagers come from criminal homes. Grandfather’s, Fathers, Brothers, Uncles and Cousins, many been have and are involved in criminal activities. For them crime is as natural as going to work is for you.
@Tricia Golden: The percentages are frightening. Travellers represent 23% of the inmates but are only 0.6% of the general population. This is a huge figure and it’s screaming at us to get this “Culture” removed with education and good role models. This way of life costs us taxpayers tens on millions a year but we are still not addressing the problem !
@Ser Barristan Selmy: Well done missing my point.
I am specifically pointing to early intervention, supplying good role models and providing advice and assistance to parents long before these children reach the stage where the penal system needs to “teach them”.
I will concede that “will” versus “potentially” but I suspect it doesn’t detract from my overall point beyond giving you something to focus on apart from my main argument.
@Richard Wright: Did I say that or is it that what you yourself are thinking?
@Richard Wright: Firstly you are assuming that I am Christian yet know nothing about me, secondly you are assuming I am writing anyone off instead of making a factual point. Anymore assumptions you would like to jump to?
@Ser, did you even read the article? No, at 14 if the “scrotes” as you call them, have NOT learned social norms. If they’re living with parents who couldn’t give a cr*p about them, where drinking or doing drugs, neglecting them, then of course they’re never going to learn what’s ok because they’ve never seen it. As for the penal system teaching them, you are out of your mind. None of this addresses the issues or fixes the problem. Does this mean we should have group hugs and candlelight vigils? No. But perhaps putting in better structures, early intervention and a social care system that works beyond 5pm on a Friday, May be places to start.
No, Ser, they don’t. If they’ve never been taught it, and shown it, they can’t pick it up by osmosis
@Richard Wright: A discussion between a mental health expert (West Cork Lad) and Mick Jordan,on this very topic..Maybe this will give you a better insight into Micks thoughts on these children…
http://www.thejournal.ie/special-care-unit-hiqa-2302413-Aug2015/#comments
@Ser Barristan Selmy: Read that article in the link that I just put up,as It might help to answer the question that you just asked of Jeannette…
Ser, early intervention and a well staffed, proper social services Dept that opens beyond 5pm on a Friday. As to knowing right from wrong and it’s full implications, we wouldn’t expect a child who was never spoken to, to be able to speak.
@Ser Barristan Selmy: My bad.I asked you to read the article.I should have said the comments section of it…
Think a free hug session is over due.
The poor darlings
Plenty of kids and adults with adhd successful in life and not robbing backsterds and burglars and car thief’s….. And I’ve no doubt the state did all it could for them by giving them free access to doctors medication councillors. Unlike the ones who pay for it
Where is Paul Murphy’s contribution on all of this ?
We’re in the process of creating our own home grown terrorist problem.
This chaos has to stop. Reopen St. Pats for god sake…..
have your say