"Twitter's changed my life everyday."

He might be making it up as he goes, but Evan Williams has a knack for seeing what others don't. He's made mistakes on the way to becoming CEO of Twitter, but said the values learned on a Clarks, Nebraska farm have paid off.

For Williams, that includes "An assumption of honesty from other person and hard work and thinking the best of people.:

He says he was naive when he dropped out of the University of Nebraska. Since then he's transformed the web first with blogger.com, and now with Twitter, a simple site where people do nothing more than share short blurbs called "tweets", posted by everyone from Shaq to President Obama.

Williams said, "It's such a phenomenon now it's changed my goals and perspectives on what I'm trying to accomplish."

When Ev Williams sends a message on Twitter it reaches hundreds of thousands of people. Now he's connecting with people back in his home state of Nebraska.

Student Emily Ingram had lunch with Williams. She said, "It was really interesting especially to have someone come from a farm in Clarks, Nebraska to go on and found a huge tech company. It's cool for students here in Nebraska to see."

Williams is a low-key player in a high tech world. His company spends more than it makes, but he's convinced it fills a void, one that could soon be profitable. In the spirit of Twitter's bite-sized formula, Williams left students with a parting shot.

"Follow your gut and change the world."

Williams wouldn't comment on rumors the company's in talks with Google. 

He said his focus now is improving the experience for users and managing the company's growth.

Then the key will be finding ways to turn those numbers into dollars.