Hatching Twitter

Before Twitter reshaped politics, media and business, the company nearly fell apart, and Nick Bilton's narrative shows how close it came. Bilton, a New York Times journalist, follows the four founders, Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone and Evan Williams, as a small group of programmers built the service from the ashes of a failed podcasting start-up. The story centers on broken friendships and struggles over money, influence and control while the company grew faster than anyone expected, turning ordinary engineers into wealthy celebrities. Bilton built the account from internal e-mails, documents and hundreds of other sources, and it went on to become a New York Times best seller.

Casey Neistat said reading it motivated him and gave him the confidence to start his own technology company. Realty Mogul chief executive Jilliene Helman called it a great book, and rmotr.com co-founder Santiago Basulto, who loves stories of companies, called it a really good book.