{"id":388,"date":"2013-02-08T20:23:16","date_gmt":"2013-02-08T20:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scqa.hult.edu\/en\/news\/news\/2013\/february\/and-for-his-next-trick--ft-magazine\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T10:46:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T10:46:05","slug":"and-for-his-next-trick-ft-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hult.edu\/blog\/and-for-his-next-trick-ft-magazine\/","title":{"rendered":"And for his next trick \u2026 [FT Magazine]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twitter may only use 140 characters but it\u2019s valued at more than $9bn, and Biz Stone, its co-creator, is already moving on<\/p>\n

Biz Stone<\/a>\u00a0and I are sitting in a San Francisco hotel, shortly before he addresses a hall full of students from Hult International Business School. His talk \u2013 a combination of Twitter history lesson, hard-learnt start-up wisdom and pitch for his new venture, Medium<\/a> \u2013 is funny, inspiring and self-deprecating. There\u2019s a generous sprinkling of that Silicon Valley save-the-world sincerity that newcomer Brits like me still find a little hard to process. But it goes down a storm with the students, many of whom seem to have enrolled at Hult in the hopes that they themselves might be the next Biz.<\/p>\n

Yet Stone\u2019s own story is as much one of luck as design. After stints at publisher Little, Brown and early blogging community Xanga, he found himself working in 2006 alongside Evan Williams and\u00a0Jack Dorsey<\/a>\u00a0at Odeo, a podcasting company which had singularly failed to change the world. Its staff, says Stone, \u201cdidn\u2019t care any more\u201d. So Williams put his team into pairs and told them to \u201cdo something cool\u201d, says Stone.<\/div>\n
\n

Over two weeks, Stone and Dorsey created a prototype of a service that let people use mobile text messaging and the web to tell others what they were doing. \u201cThe team thought it was really stupid,\u201d says Stone. But before long it became clear that twttr, as it was originally called, held greater promise than podcasting. Working under Twitter\u2019s then-parent Obvious Corp, its creators enjoyed using it enough to look past the common criticism that Twitter was not \u201cuseful\u201d. \u201cEvan at the time said, \u2018Neither is ice cream: should we ban ice cream and all joy?\u2019\u201d recalls Stone.<\/p>\n

As Twitter grew faster than its creators could handle, that early experience helped to shape Stone\u2019s objectives for the company \u2013 and what he would like the \u201csuccess mechanism for capitalism itself\u201d to be: make money, be impactful and be joyful. \u201cWe hired a CSR person at Twitter years before we hired our first sales person, to make sure we had a culture and impact of doing good,\u201d he says. \u201cIt turns out to be a competitive edge. It attracts more talent because people are attracted to meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n

At this time, Stone\u2019s home life was almost as chaotic as work. Stone\u2019s wife, Livia, was then working as a wildlife rehabilitation specialist and would bring back injured animals to their 600 sq ft home. \u201cAt any given point it was baby rabbits, wounded crows, various rodents, and we have a permanent resident in Roshi, our small tortoise that was found and needed a home \u2013 in addition to our rescue dog and cats,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n

Now, however, Stone\u2019s circumstances are somewhat different. Twitter is\u00a0valued at more than $9bn<\/a>, after a fund managed by BlackRock in late January offered to buy stock from early employees. That rapid value-creation has allowed Stone, Williams and others to not only buy bigger houses, but also put more money into \u201cpro-social\u201d goals. After parting ways with Twitter, in mid-2011 they rebooted Obvious Corp<\/a> as an investor and incubator in downtown San Francisco.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Continue reading the article in full<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Grow your leadership capabilities with an MBA in international business<\/a> at Hult. To learn more, take a look at our blog Why every leader needs a growth mindset<\/a>, or give your career a boost with our Masters in International Business<\/a>. Download a brochure or get in touch today to find out how Hult can help you to learn about the business world, the future, and yourself.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twitter may only use 140 characters but it\u2019s valued at more than $9bn, and Biz Stone, its co-creator, is already moving on Biz Stone\u00a0and I are sitting in a San…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nAnd for his next trick \u2026 [FT Magazine] | Hult International Business School<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Twitter may only use 140 characters but it\u2019s valued at more than $9bn, and Biz Stone, its co-creator, is already moving on\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"And for his next trick \u2026 [FT Magazine] | Hult International Business School\" \/>\n<meta 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