For those that don’t have Sirius / XM Radio…
Yesterday morning Twitter co-founder Biz Stone stopped by the Howard Stern Show for an interview. Here’s a recap of that interview:
Biz started off by discussing how he started twitter with Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams. It all really started with their working relationship at Google. Biz was a part of the team that created Blogger, his goal then was to create a super easy blogging site.
Biz helped start Odeo for podcasting after securing about $5M in funding, but that didn’t succeed. The problem with Odeo was that they weren’t using the product themselves. “If you aren’t emotionally invested, your product won’t succeed”
There were times that Biz would sit down with a calculator and obsess about the stock he left on the table over at Google. It took 4 years to be fully vested and he only was 2 years into it. He credits his wife for bringing him back to reality and taking the calculator away from him.
After the flop of Odeo, Evan Williams suggested that Jack and Biz take 2 weeks to go and build something fun.
Biz went back to his roots and his goal of creating a simple blogging platform. They asked themselves, what platform could they build on top of mobile texting. Texting was huge in Europe and rapidly catching on worldwide. They researched and found that there was nearly 5 billion active cell phones, but only 2 billion on Internet. Twitter’s restriction of 140 characters was because 160 max on texting and they wanted to leave room for the user name to send.
They rolled out Twitter in 2006, when Facebook was still just for college kids.
One of the big pushes that they want to show was that on Twitter there was no need to ask to be a friend. Just follow people who interest you and share similar interests.
His goal with Twitter is to be another great Internet company, not just beat Facebook and Google.
Biz admitted that he needs to add a function to the Twitter website that allows comments as to why something was retweeted (a function that is currently available on 3rd party applications).
Howard mentioned that he uses the official iPhone twitter app, and asks if Tweetdeck bothers Biz. Biz has no problems with Tweetdeck.
Biz mentioned that Jack and Evan left and came back to Twitter when needed while Biz stayed the whole time.
Biz is thankful for the user inputs that have been so big for Twitter such as: user replies, hashtags, etc. In his eyes, Twitter is a living thing that changes as needs are addressed.
Everyone who works at Twitter owns a part of the company. The three original founders own a percentage and venture capitalists don’t own a majority percentage, but do make up a significant portion. Biz, Jack and Evan were careful not to take outside money until Twitter began to grow rapidly.
Howard Stern asked Biz to talk about meeting Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and the day that they went to Facebook’s HQ in Palo Alto, California to discuss a potential purchase of Twitter. It was in ’08 when Zuck offered approximately $500M mix cash and stock. Why did he refuse? Ev and Biz just wanted to talk with Mark. They had no intention of selling. He described the meeting as “fun, but awkward.” He talked about how there was only a love seat for Biz and Ev to sit in. When speaking to Zuckerberg, Biz said he’s like one guy with 12 people in his head.
Twitter is only making about $250M in Ad dollars per year. Right now, they are only inviting Ad partners. They have no current plans to offer open Ad space.
Discusses that he’s a modest guy, potentially worth billions and only takes a small salary. Biz admits that he only has a mortgage on a 2000sq ft house and that he leases a mini. No plans for IPO. He keeps reiterating that it’s too early. Twitter wants to prove that they can have a positive global impact before going any further.
He has complete faith that Twitter is going to be 10 times bigger than it is today.
He feels that even though he hasn’t sold the company and isn’t making billions, he still feels that he is living the American Dream.
Howard tries to get a little personal with Biz, as only Howard Stern can do. Howard asked if “Biz Stone” was his stage name because it was too good to be true. Biz said his real name is Christopher Issac Stone. When he was a little kid he had trouble saying “Christopher” and instead said “Bizifur”, so Biz became his nickname. His mother would tease him and tell people that it was short for Elizabeth. Biz was a good student. His mother inherited a wealthy house, his parents split at an early age and ended up being the poor kid in a rich neighborhood. He has had little contact with his father contact in 10 years. Howard asked if being the creator of Twitter gained him easy access to women? Biz stated that he’s married and is fortunate for his life. Some people feel like Twitter is an overnight success, but it has taken 11 years of thought and work to get to this point.
Amongst the Howard Stern Show, there is a big push to see which Stern staffer would be “verified” first. Biz broke the news to the crew and said that coincidently enough a recent update to site inadvertently took down verification.
Howard asked, who decides verification? There is a group of people on the support team who decides. Ultimately they want to automate Verification. Currently they are only verifying Ad Partners, Politicians, Celebrities, and public figures.
Howard had a few members of his staff come in and state their case as to why they should be “verified” to Biz. These people had 30 seconds to plead their case:
Ronnie The Limo Driver ended up winning “verification” on Twitter because he stated that he was impersonated by too many people and has actually had his account suspended because Twitter thought he was the fake!
Biz left shortly after that…
[the end]