Twilio: Jeff Lawson

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 3 April 2023

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Jeff Lawson co-founded Twilio in 2008, he had already been through a series of start-ups. Some succeeded, others fizzled out—but each provided insights that led him to build one of the most extensive communication platforms in business. Fueled by his frustration juggling customer calls while trying to run a surf and skate store in LA, Lawson realized he could use his coding skills and knowledge of cloud computing to help companies connect with customers. Twilio’s early communications technology quickly gained traction with developers at other start-ups like Uber, which used it to text riders that their car had arrived. Despite early skepticism from investors, Twilio eventually grew into a $4 billion business, with customers like Nike, Toyota, OpenAI, and Airbnb.

This episode was produced by Kira Wakeam, with music by Ramtin Arablouei

Edited by Neva Grant, with research help from Sam Paulson.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
0:07.0	Download the app today.
0:09.0	What if the greatest tragedy of your life was just covered up?
0:12.0	I have never seen anything like that before or after.
0:15.0	This is the story of the worst marine-on-marine friendly fire in modern history.
0:20.0	A story kept from the public.
0:22.0	It's like, what did y'all have to hide?
0:24.0	Listen to NPR's embedded podcast and its latest series, taking cover.
0:30.0	How I built this is pleased to have Upwork as our presenting sponsor.
0:34.0	Visit Upwork.com to get hiring.
0:36.0	Upwork has a message for you.
0:38.0	Everything you know about business, it was made up by a bunch of guys a hundred years ago.
0:43.0	Don't stay bound to their antiquated rules like the 9-5 Workday, commuting to an empty office building or only hiring full timers.
0:50.0	Embrace a new way of working with Upwork.
0:53.0	It's a portal to the future of business, and it's disguised as a website.
0:57.0	Go to Upwork.com, there you'll see the light and also find talent for projects of any size,
1:03.0	from simple deliverables to complex projects, from short-term help to full-time hires.
1:08.0	You can finally let those old business titans and their tired ideas rest in peace.
1:13.0	This is how we work now.
1:15.0	Visit Upwork.com to get hiring talented professionals today.
1:19.0	We had this very fateful meeting, I remember, where we said, look, you know, investors have told us we're wrong, but this is stupid.
1:31.0	These are smart people, these aren't dummies, they're smart.
	...

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