Dick Costolo was born in Detroit on 10 September 1963. He graduated the University of Michigan with a bachelor's degree in computer science. During this time, Dick was heavily involved in theatre and following his education he turned down offers from technology companies to pursue a career in improvisational comedy in Chicago. Dick appeared at the Annoyance Theatre on several occasions and would go on to perform stand up routines in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom.
However in 1994 following the debut of the Netscape Internet browser, Dick turned his attention to the world of IT. He spent the rest of the decade founding and running digital media companies including Burning Door Network Media and Spyonit.
In 2003, Dick and his friends Eric Lunt, Steve Olechowski and Matt Shobe co-founded FeedBurner after the foursome realised that several websites would make their content available for subscription, but it would be difficult to keep track of numbers and make money out of it. "We argued about it for about a week," recalled Dick. FeedBurner therefore distributed blogs and news site content through RSS feeds with advertisements attached. "We're going to provide publishers with the broadest sweep of tools to be successful in an open media landscape where your content can go anywhere," noted Dick.
FeedBurner was bough by Google in mid 2007 with Dick working for the company as a product manager up until 2009. He then joined Twitter as its COO and was responsible for monetisation and day-to-day operations. He then replaced the company's co-founder Evan Williams as CEO in October 2010.
Upon his appointment, Dick said:
"I’m certainly excited to be taking on this role. You couldn’t ask to take a job like this at a better time – the team is incredible, we have awesome stuff in the pipeline, and we’re ready to accomplish more in the next two years than we’ve accomplished in the last four."
Early in 2011, Dick moved to clarify Twitter's long-term vision after he had failed to give a definite answer in an interview the previous year.
"We want to instantly connect people everywhere to what's most important to them," he responded. Dick also said that Twitter is about connecting for a purpose, such as a daily source of news.
In February, Dick revealed that Twitter was making money but declined to specify these revenue sources. He did however say there was no plan to launch a Twitter-branded smartphone. "Tweets flow seamlessly across platforms; that's what we're trying to accomplish," he noted.
Twitter then announced its intention to launch its own photo and video sharing service following years of leaving the hosting to third parties:
"A native photo sharing experience will be rolled out to 100% of users over the next couple of weeks," revealed Dick. Responding to a question about copyright issues, Dick replied: "Users will own the rights to their photos on Twitter."
Later that year, it was announced that Twitter had 100 million active users each month, with 50% logging in every day. "We had 30% of our monthly active users login in every day at the beginning of the year. Now it's over 50%," boasted Dick. This growth equated to around 40% quarter on quarter.
In 2012, Dick was forced to defend Twitter's new censorship policies after announcing it would begin hiding posts in certain countries to comply with local laws:
"Now, when we are issued a valid legal order in a country in which we operate, such as a DMCA takedown notice, we are able to leave the content up for as many people around the world as possible, while still operating within the local law."
Right before the 2012 US Presidential Election, Dick said that Twitter would be an essential platform for reaching voters and gathering opinion. He said:
"In the past, you'd have to wait for the networks to cut to the pundits after the address was done to discuss it. You don't have to do that anymore."
In May, Dick said that he was not looking to take Twitter public anytime soon as he was pleased with how the company was moving forward:
"Our business is growing on its own organically. We have plenty of money in the bank from private financing."
Towards the end of the year, Dick noted that Twitter was looking at ways to participate in ecommerce transactions as a new source of revenue:
"It’s particularly interesting in areas where you’ve got things like perishable inventory, like tickets," he said. "We observe that and are paying attention to that, and are thinking about the kinds of ways we could participate in that value exchange."
In 2013, Dick asserted that Twitter’s primary aim was growth and delivering a quality product rather than increasing revenue:
"Our user growth drives everything. As I think about the service and what we are trying to accomplish…it is entirely in service to reach every person on the planet. We will figure out how to build a business if we are delivery great user experiences that more people come to,” he noted.
Dick is married to Lorin. They have two children together.
Dick is an active user of Twitter, posting pictures of his work and personal life. Interests include travel, food and sport, notably basketball, American football, soccer, mountain biking and even surfing.
In 2011, alongside other technology luminaries such as Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Eric Schmidt, Dick joined President Obama for dinner to discuss how the industry could work together and "win the future."
On competition:
"We don't let other companies decisions affect where we are going."
On leadership:
"I would contrast my management philosophy here with the general Silicon Valley notion that management isn’t a first- class competency. It's underrated."
