# Dick Costolo

> Dick Costolo is a co-founder and General Partner at 01 Advisors, a $920M venture firm he built with former Twitter COO Adam Bain. Before that, he was the CEO of Twitter from 2010 to 2015 - the longest-tenured and most financially productive CEO in the company's history, growing revenue from zero to $1.5 billion and leading its 2013 IPO. He started his career as an improv comedian at Chicago's Second City (Steve Carell was in his cohort), built and sold three startups including FeedBurner to Google for ~$100M, and remains one of the most candid, self-deprecating, and operationally sharp executives in Silicon Valley.

- **Role:** Co-Founder and General Partner at 01 Advisors
- **Organizations:** 01 Advisors, Twitter, FeedBurner, Google, Chorus, Second City
- **From:** Royal Oak, Michigan, USA
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** B.S. in Computer and Communication Sciences, University of Michigan
- **Known for:** Grew Twitter revenue from $0 to $1.5 billion annually during 5-year tenure as CEO, Led Twitter's November 2013 IPO (NYSE: TWTR), which debuted at $26/share and surged to $44.90 on day one, Grew Twitter's shareholder value from ~$1B to ~$24B (24x) during tenure

## Career timeline

- **1985** — Graduated University of Michigan with B.S. in Computer and Communication Sciences; turned down tech jobs to pursue improv comedy in Chicago
- **1985-1993** — Performed improv comedy at Second City and iO (ImprovOlympic) in Chicago; Steve Carell was a classmate
- **1993-1999** — Senior Manager at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), product and technology groups
- **1994** — Co-founded Burning Door Networked Media, a Web 1.0 consulting firm; acquired by Digital Knowledge Assets in 1996
- **1999** — Co-founded SpyOnIt, a web page monitoring service; sold to 724 Solutions in September 2000
- **2004** — Co-founded FeedBurner, an RSS/Atom web feed management platform
- **2007** — Google acquired FeedBurner for ~$100 million; Costolo joined Google as Group Product Manager
- **2009** — Left Google; joined Twitter as Chief Operating Officer in September 2009
- **2010** — Became permanent CEO of Twitter; began turnaround including fixing the Fail Whale reliability issues
- **2011** — Appointed to National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee by President Obama
- **2013** — Led Twitter's IPO (NYSE: TWTR) in November; shares debuted at $26, surged to $44.90 on day one; delivered famous University of Michigan commencement address
- **2015** — Stepped down as Twitter CEO on July 1, 2015; internal memo about platform abuse became national news
- **2015-2016** — Joined board of Patreon; became venture partner at Index Ventures; consulted on HBO's Silicon Valley
- **2016** — Co-founded Chorus, a social accountability fitness app; raised $9M
- **2018** — Shut down Chorus; co-founded 01 Advisors (01A) with Adam Bain
- **2023** — 01 Advisors closed $395M Fund III; total AUM reached ~$920M
- **2025** — 01A invested in Baseten Technologies Series C; appeared at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025

## Achievements

- Grew Twitter revenue from $0 to $1.5 billion annually during 5-year tenure as CEO
- Led Twitter's November 2013 IPO (NYSE: TWTR), which debuted at $26/share and surged to $44.90 on day one
- Grew Twitter's shareholder value from ~$1B to ~$24B (24x) during tenure
- Grew Twitter headcount from ~300 to ~3,900 employees
- Fixed Twitter's notorious 'Fail Whale' reliability issues
- Co-founded FeedBurner, acquired by Google for ~$100 million in 2007
- Co-founded 01 Advisors, which has raised ~$920M across three funds
- Named one of Time's 10 Most Influential U.S. Tech CEOs (2013)
- Appointed to National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee by President Obama (2011)
- Portfolio includes unicorns: Notion, Figma, Databricks, Airtable, Chime, Linear

## Latest updates

- **2025-09** — Appeared at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 in a fireside chat with Adam Bain and David Fischer on 01A's playbook
- **2025-02** — 01 Advisors invested in Baseten Technologies Series C
- **2023-11** — 01 Advisors closed $395M Fund III, bringing total AUM to approximately $920M

## Links

- Website: https://01a.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dick-costolo-b741263/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/dickc

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/dick-costolo
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-04-28