Check Out Some Of Dick Costolo's Greatest Ever Twitter Putdowns

That sometimes makes him a target - critics know he's watching his timeline for mentions, and it's easy to direct barbs at @dickc and know that Costolo will likely see it.

But people forget he's also a former standup comic, and therefore knows how to deal with hecklers. To paraphrase a great American philosopher, pity the fool who trolls Costolo on Twitter.

We saw an example of that recently when tech academic Vivek Wadhwa criticized Twitter's all-male board of directors in the New York Times by saying, "This is the elite arrogance of the Silicon Valley mafia, the Twitter mafia."

Costolo responded with this epic smackdown:

It left Wadhwa gasping ...

Costolo began his career as COO of Twitter with this infamous, sarcastic tweet:

Of course, he did actually become the CEO. Now, he frequently uses self-deprecating putdowns to disarm folks who try to embarrass him. This was one attempt:

This was Costolo's response:

Here's how he deals with lawyers trying to sue him:

(Williams, the founder of Twitter, is now the ex-CEO of Twitter.)

Here's how Costolo got a correction out of the Altantic:

Here's his take on the federal government shutdown:

Don't call him dude, even when you're talking about the president of Iran:

And don't brag about your awesome life ...

Don't bother with "Dick" jokes either, he's heard them all before:

He also deals bluntly with Twitter partners when they break the rules. Last month he was asked why Twitter had disabled "bulk following" tools for companies that want to deal with users en masse:

Now you know! Don't mess with Costolo!