They were the big gorilla at the time and he'd come from there (they'd acquired his previous company, Blogger). In hindsight, it probably didn't matter at all. The only people I can think that it would have been worth hiding from was press because Twitter rightfully made us look unfocused and we weren't willing to say publicly that Odeo was dead and Twitter was now the thing.

Also, nobody actually thought Twitter was definitely a hit. We just thought Odeo was not working and that Twitter was worth continuing to explore.