Way before Twitter, there was Blogger. Williams launched one of the original self-publishing sites in 1999 and it was popular for a while, Forbes reported. But in 2000, Blogger crashed and Williams had to lay off all his employees.
Williams told Reid Hoffman on the "Masters of Scale" podcast:
"I sat the team down and said, 'Look, in two weeks, we're not gonna be able to pay you.” So, essentially, this is the last paycheck we can pay.' We had already like skipped one. I told them, 'You're welcome to come back tomorrow. I'm gonna come back.” But none of them came back. That was hard."
Alone, Williams kept working on the startup until, in 2003, it was bought by Google. Williams went to work for the tech giant.
Though Blogger doesn't exist anymore, Williams himself has been more than a little successful since then: He cofounded Twitter and has served as its CEO.