Twitter, the Startup That Wouldn't Die

Life inside successful Web startups—especially the really successful ones—can be nasty, brutish, and short. As companies grow exponentially, egos clash, investors jockey for control, and business complexities rapidly exceed the managerial abilities of the founders. Venture capitalist Peter Fenton calls this phenomenon “the violence of a startup.” And nowhere has the violence been fiercer, or more public, than at a company Fenton invested in and has helped to guide: Twitter. Now something freakish is happening in San Francisco. Twitter, which for years treated the responsibility of earning money as an annoying distraction, may be turning into a viable business. The company has added seasoned executives, pushed its unique symbology like the hashtag (#) and at-symbol handle (@) into the mainstream, and rolled out new advertising products to the delight of big brands such as General Motors (GM) and Budweiser (BUD), which advertised heavily on the microblog service during this year’s Super Bowl.