A week after Elon Musk took over Twitter, as the first wave of employees started to learn they had lost their jobs, Alphonzo “Phonz” Terrell jumped on Twitter Spaces and invited his colleagues to join him. “Tweep Therapy,” as the Space was called, attracted thousands of listeners and ran well into the wee hours of the morning as dozens of laid off workers shared their favorite memories of the company that had just given them the boot.

“I was very clear as we were sort of facilitating this ad hoc, ‘don’t incriminate yourself, keep the vibes positive,’” says Terrell, who led Twitter’s social media team before he was laid off on Nov. 4. “It went way better than I even anticipated.”

To Terrell, that session wasn’t just a eulogy for Twitter. It was also a moment of clarity that there was suddenly room for something else. A few weeks later he announced his own social network, Spill, a Twitter lookalike that he co-founded with another ex-tweep, Devaris Brown. Terrell says Spill will focus on preventing abuse from the outset and prioritize creators – especially black creators and others from underrepresented groups — including helping them make money.