Powering the Future of Business Communications: Twilio

“Seek first to understand, and then be understood”

The telecom hardware sometimes can be messy and many companies have problems with business communication. But it all faded away when Twilio came into existence and exposed a globally available cloud API that developers can interact with to build intelligent and complex communications systems it has solved major problems in the industry today.

“As your app’s usage scales up or down, Twilio automatically scales with you. You only pay for what you use - no contracts, no shenanigans,” says Jeff Lawson, founder, CEO of Twilio.

The company started in January 2008 in San Francisco, CA and after ten years, it has become one of the famous companies in the industry. It makes products and decisions every day that allows it to be innovative and productive.

More than 2 million developers around the world have used Twilio to unlock the magic of communications to improve any human experience. Twilio has democratized communications channels like voice, text, chat, and video by virtualizing the world’s telecommunications infrastructure through APIs that are simple enough for any developer to use, yet robust enough to power the world’s most demanding applications.

By making communications a part of every software developer’s toolkit, Twilio is enabling innovators across every industry — from emerging leaders to the world’s largest organizations — to reinvent how companies engage with their customers.

Currently, Twilio has over 800 employees, with headquarters in San Francisco and other offices in Bogotá, Dublin, Hong Kong, London, Madrid, Malmö, Mountain View, Atlanta, Munich, New York City, Singapore, and Tallinn.

The Nine Values of the Company

It lives for the spirit of challenges, empowers others, starts with ‘why’, creates experiences, shows no shenanigans, very humble thinks at scale, draws the OWL, and is Frugal. Following these core values, the company has certainly evolved to the next stage.

It tackles hard problems by being ambitious and if it isn’t terrifying, it feels it isn’t pushing itself enough. Makes heroes who unleash the greatness of others whether if it’s inside or outside the company. It starts by understanding customers and their needs so it can care for them in a better way. It challenges assumptions with data. Also, it inspires confidence and admiration in every interaction when someone has with it. It is very much thoughtful, deal in an honest, direct and transparent way. “Everybody has something to learn,” says Jeff.

Twilio anticipates where it is going and invests in systems that provide a consistent customer experience as it grows. There’s no instruction book, it’s their open board to draw. It figures it out, ships it and iterates. Profit is the engine that lets it achieve its goals. It believes that if it does more with less, it can do more.

Why Twilio is a Leader

It wears the customer’s shoes and analyses the problems faced by them. The company makes sure each employee has a point of view and maybe that is why the leaders leave in order to create a legacy. Instead of seeking perfection, the firm seeks progress which has favored it throughout its business. It also makes colleagues better by learning and teaching so being intellectually honest is what the employees are thought and follow. The firm is certainly adaptive to a harsh environment that made it relentless and sees success.

Pushing the future of communications forward requires more than infrastructure. At Twilio, it strives to build equity, equality, and belonging to make communication more inclusive for all. Diversity is best measured in actions, not words. The goal is to create a space for underrepresented communities by removing barriers to access, going where others don’t, and building bridges to make tech more representative.

Twilio is committed to going where others don’t. The work you do every day depends on your aptitude and execution, not a cookie cutter resume. It hires people with non-traditional backgrounds to increase its hiring funnel and work towards a more equitable tech industry. Career advancement should happen on a level playing field. Twilio works to ensure an unbiased recruiting process and a commitment to equal pay and promotional opportunities for all. Twilio continues to create an environment of involvement, respect, collaboration, and connection. In this setting, it can serve and cultivate rich ideas from any background and perspective.

The Chief Twilion

Jeff Lawson, founder, CEO & Chairman: A serial entrepreneur and a software developer, Jeff co-founded Twilio in 2008 to bring communications into the world of software. Prior to Twilio, Jeff was co-founder & CTO of NineStar, founding CTO of Stubhub.com, co-founder, CEO & CTO of Varsity, and one of the first product managers for Amazon Web Services. Jeff grew up in Detroit, started his first company at age 12 doing event video production, DJ’d his way through college, and graduated from the University of Michigan. He is a father of two young boys, enjoys photography, and always makes time to hack on new software and hardware projects.

“Bringing your idea to life is easier with the right tools and we at Twilio help you deploy it into reality.”