Twitter cofounder Evan Williams wanted Twitter to buy his blogging platform Medium for $500 million (TWTR)
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A new profile of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in Vanity Fair reveals what would have been a big acquisition for the company if it had come to fruition: Twitter buying the online publishing platform Medium.
Medium, which was founded in 2011 by Twitter cofounder Evan Williams, is a popular online blogging platform that allows anyone to contribute content. It has raised $132 million in funding.
In the new profile, Vanity Fair's Nick Bilton outlines Dorsey's transition back into the role of CEO and details the behind-the-scenes turmoil at the social-media company. After the departure of CEO Dick Costolo, Twitter's board of directors scrambled to find a replacement, eventually choosing Dorsey as interim chief — and eventually CEO — over Williams.
But Williams was working on a deal of his own: attempting to persuade Twitter's board of directors to purchase Medium for $500 million. According to the report, Williams hoped to integrate the blogging platform into Twitter, but the deal ultimately didn't happen. Bilton writes that the board declined to purchase Medium for a variety of reasons, one of them being the high price tag.
You can read the full profile — which takes a deep dive into Twitter's troubles — over at Vanity Fair.
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