Jeff Lawson, co-founder and CEO of Twilio

Jeff Lawson is the co-founder and CEO of Twilio, founded in 2008.
Twilio allows software developers to programmatically make and
receive phone calls, send and receive text messages. As a
customer, anytime you call or text your Uber driver, you are
using Twilio! Today Byron will talk with Jeff about his career
leading up to founding Twilio, how they built the company and the
challenges along the way to their IPO.
Insights and key takeaways from Jeff Lawson


Internet connection can be the source of invention and
inspiration in college: “I arrived at school in 1995.
And so, many people arrived at college and the thing they were
most excited about was alcohol or other girls or boys or
whoever it was, and the freedom of leaving home. And for me, I
arrived in the dorm and I was like, “Oh my God, there’s a 10
megabit ethernet jack in this,” remembered Jeff. “That was the
thing that was most exciting to me. That was the most
life-changing part about going to college. Not the alcohol or
the parties or anything. And it was ‘95, so it was right after
the Netscape IPO, and I remember one of the first things I did
after I said goodbye to my parents was I FTPed down a copy of
Netscape Navigator 1.0, and suddenly was able to start browsing
this brand new thing called the web.”


When Jeff was working on a startup he realized the
importance of following your passion: “Why am I
grinding out code with these skate kids all around me breaking
my flow, when really I belong in tech?” asked Jeff. “I realized
I had made that same mistake again, of not following my
passion. I was pouring all my blood sweat and tears into a
company where it was a good business opportunity, but wasn’t
where my heart was.”


Twilio was started because Jeff always believed that
software is a super power: “Developers can build
software quickly and iteratively to serve customers,” said
Jeff. “Your work is never done because you can always hear the
next problem or the next improvement, and put your mind to work
and build a better version of your product.”


Experimentation is the prerequisite to
innovation. “If you can help a developer and help
companies run more experiments for what their customers need,
then you’re going to get more innovation. If you ruthlessly
remove the friction, the barriers to experimentation, that is
what you need to enable innovation. That was the guiding
principle that we started the company with,” said Jeff.


In the cloud your number one value proposition you’re
selling is trust. “No matter what you do. If you’re a
communications API, if you’re infrastructure as a service, or
if you’re a SaaS product. What you’re fundamentally telling
your customer is, “Trust me to run this part of your business
for you.”