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Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is returning to the company

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Re: Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is returning to the company

#11

"Stone explained that his top focus will be guiding company culture. 'It’s important that everyone understands the whole story of Twitter and each of our roles in that story. I’ll shape the experience internally so it’s also felt outside the company.' – Biz Stone Of the things twitter needs - strategy? product direction? revenue? - is "guiding the company culture" really that high on the list?

> Of the things twitter needs - strategy? product direction? revenue? - is "guiding the company culture" really that high on the list?

This is very typical in dying large companies, you bring back the old guard to try and save the day. Rarely works, but at least it's an attempt.

Re: Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is returning to the company

#12
post #4

Twitter's market cap moved up $200 million on the news that Biz is back.

Alternatively, twitters market cap went up 1.4%, which is well within the usual ups and downs of normal trading throughout the day.

Maybe it was because of this. Maybe it was because some analyst put out a piece on a private feed that said "Twitter might make more money someday".

Re: Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is returning to the company

#13

"Stone explained that his top focus will be guiding company culture. 'It’s important that everyone understands the whole story of Twitter and each of our roles in that story. I’ll shape the experience internally so it’s also felt outside the company.' – Biz Stone Of the things twitter needs - strategy? product direction? revenue? - is "guiding the company culture" really that high on the list?

Culture? His description sounds more like a cluster fuck of ego in the making.

Re: Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is returning to the company

#16
post #12
post #4

Twitter's market cap moved up $200 million on the news that Biz is back.

Alternatively, twitters market cap went up 1.4%, which is well within the usual ups and downs of normal trading throughout the day. Maybe it was because of this. Maybe it was because some analyst put out a piece on a private feed that said "Twitter might make more money someday".

"more money"? They've yet to make any money.

Re: Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is returning to the company

#17
I know a lot of the early history, I worked there when we hired both Jack and Biz. I can tell you that it's a really good thing that Biz is back on board. Biz was able to articulate what twitter was as the human voice of the company in both directions. From day one the question was always, what does Biz do.

Biz bounced around but when he was there things were better. Kind of like the basketball player that Nate Silver likes to love, who doesn't have any stat which makes them star, but everybody else around them plays better when they're there. Biz isn't a business guy, nor product, nor code, nor support, nor really marketing. But when he's in the room, working with people, everybody's better at all of those things.

He can play a kind of court jester role, which is disarming, but he's super damned sharp. He uses stories and humor to bring people forward.

Having him there, working on twitter means there are now two people in senior roles who aren't afraid of breaking twitter, because they created it in the first place.

In recent years, talking to twitter employees you get this amnesia over the company's culture and history. People don't know where things came from, they don't know the story of how the came to be. The myth's are complicated and messy. And eventually go so messy the company stopped telling the story of how twitter came to be where it is now all together.

With Biz back, he can take on that internal story telling, creating a hero's journey that the company can believe in. Because he's there, as an equal to Jack in understanding the origin, he can tear things down without fear of destroying somebody else's house of cards.

Re: Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is returning to the company

#18

"Stone explained that his top focus will be guiding company culture. 'It’s important that everyone understands the whole story of Twitter and each of our roles in that story. I’ll shape the experience internally so it’s also felt outside the company.' – Biz Stone Of the things twitter needs - strategy? product direction? revenue? - is "guiding the company culture" really that high on the list?

I think creating a healthy company culture is a necessary foundation before any of those other things can have a good effect.

Re: Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is returning to the company

#20

"Stone explained that his top focus will be guiding company culture. 'It’s important that everyone understands the whole story of Twitter and each of our roles in that story. I’ll shape the experience internally so it’s also felt outside the company.' – Biz Stone Of the things twitter needs - strategy? product direction? revenue? - is "guiding the company culture" really that high on the list?

Sometimes a company only misses the right manager to make employees solutions bloom. Or gather who can do things that matter.
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