Twitter co-founder Biz Stone appeared on Bloomberg Television today to talk about his new app Jelly, but ended up talking a bit about Twitter as well.
His time at Twitter and the people he worked with there are apparently having a major affect on Stone’s first go at the CEO role.
“It sounds kinda cheesy to say this, but I look up to Evan and Jack and Dick,” he said in the interview. “I like to kind of steal their best traits and fold them in to my own leadership skills. But my main thing as a leader is to be as communicative as possible. I think that’s like 50% or 75% of the job as a CEO — to make sure everybody knows everything they need to know.”
“It is great,” he said. “I love it. The fact that I have Kevin Thau at my back, that really made all the difference. We were talking before about how we didn’t really intend to make this a company. In fact, I was telling Kevin Thau, one of my friends and trusted advisors, about the idea. And he just said, ‘I’m in.’ And I thought he meant he likes the idea. And then I went to dinner at his house and he said ‘hey, Biz – Jelly, I’m in.’ I said, what does that mean? Is that something the kids are saying? He said, no, I want to do this. So once he decided to come on board, that’s when really I said, well with your help, I think I can make a good CEO.”
Stone’s new app accumulated Twice as many new accounts in three days as Twitter did in an entire year. I’d say that’s a good start.
Stone, by the way, thinks the story in the “Hatching Twitter” book is a fair representation of the founding of Twitter.
Image via Twitter