Evan Williams
Evan Williams Image Credit: AFP

San Francisco: Twitter Inc. co-founder Evan Williams will step down from the company’s board at the end of February.

“It’s been an incredible 13 years, and I’m proud of what Twitter has accomplished during my time with the company,” Williams, 46, now chief executive office of web publisher Medium Corp., said on Friday in a company filing.

In 2006, Williams, Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone started the San Francisco-based social media company known for its original 140-character limit on messages. He served various roles at the company, including chief executive officer, chief product officer and board chairman before leaving day-to-day responsibilities in late 2010. He started Medium in 2012. Twitter went public in 2013.

Williams, in a tweet, thanked Dorsey and Stone for “starting this crazy company with me — and continuing to make it better and better.”

The company has suffered from comparisons with Facebook Inc., and at about 321 million monthly average users, has far fewer users than the social media giant. Dorsey, who had left the company, returned as chief executive officer in 2015. He has emphasised video and live events to add to the conversation on the site and gained the backing of investors.