Here’s an interesting piece of startup history that might not be familiar to those outside the tech industry: the initial versions of well-known Android apps, including Twitter, were actually developed by Google. This insight came to light during a recent podcast featuring Sara Beykpour, Twitter’s former senior director of product management and now co-founder of the AI news startup Particle.

In the podcast hosted by Lightspeed partner Michael Mignano, Beykpour reflects on her experiences at Twitter. She joined the company in 2009 as a tools engineer when it had a mere 75 employees. Eventually, she transitioned to working on mobile development during a time when third-party apps were gaining traction on platforms like BlackBerry and iOS. Notably, Loren Brichter’s Tweetie app was acquired by Twitter and became the foundation for its first official iOS app.

Regarding Twitter’s Android application, Beykpour shared that it originated from Google.

“The Twitter for Android client was a demo app that Google created and provided to us,” she explained on the podcast. “They did this with many popular social apps at that time: Foursquare, Twitter, etc.—they all looked similar in those early days because Google developed them all.”

Mignano was surprised and asked, “So, Google wanted companies to adopt Android, so they built you apps?”

“Yes, exactly,” Beykpour confirmed.

After receiving the Android app from Google, Twitter continued its development, with Beykpour serving as the company’s second Android engineer.

In fact, Google had outlined its efforts on the Android Twitter client in a 2010 blog post, but much of the media coverage at the time failed to acknowledge Google’s contributions, leading to this piece of internet history being overlooked. In the post, Google detailed how it integrated early Android best practices into the Twitter app. Beykpour noted that the author of the post, Virgil Dobjanschi, was the primary software engineer.

“If we had questions, we were supposed to reach out to him,” she recalled.

Beykpour shared additional stories about Twitter's formative years. For example, after returning to Twitter from a position at Secret, she worked on the video app Vine. She faced pressure to launch Vine on Android before Instagram rolled out its video feature. She successfully met that deadline, launching Vine approximately two weeks ahead of Instagram Video.

This timing had a “significant” impact on Vine's user metrics, which Beykpour believes ultimately contributed to the app’s downfall. “That was the day the writing was on the wall,” she stated, although it took years for Vine to be officially shut down.

At Twitter, Beykpour was responsible for overseeing Vine's closure—an app still beloved by many, so much so that new Twitter/X owner Elon Musk frequently teases the possibility of reviving it. Beykpour argues that shutting down Vine was the right decision, pointing out that it wasn’t growing and was costly to maintain. While she acknowledges that some might view the situation differently, suggesting Vine lacked resources or leadership support, she maintains that the closure was ultimately a matter of Vine’s financial impact on Twitter.

Beykpour also recounted an intriguing story about her work on Periscope. She joined the startup just as it was being acquired by Twitter after her time at Secret and had to rejoin Twitter under a pseudonym to keep the acquisition confidential for a while.

She discussed the challenges Twitter faced in securing resources for developing products and features aimed at power users, such as journalists. “Twitter really struggled to define its user,” she explained, noting that the platform relied heavily on traditional OKRs and metrics. However, she pointed out that “only a fraction of people tweet,” and within that subset, only a small group generates the content that users actually want to see, making it difficult to measure.

Now at Particle, her experience at Twitter is shaping the strategy for the AI news app, which aims to connect users with relevant news in their vicinity.

“Particle is a reimagining of how you consume your daily news,” Beykpour explained on the podcast. The app intends to provide a multi-faceted perspective on news while ensuring access to high-quality journalism. The startup is exploring alternative monetization methods beyond ads, subscriptions, or micropayments, though specific strategies are still under consideration. Particle is currently engaging with potential publishing partners to determine fair compensation for their work.