Biz Stone

Biz Stone
Born Christopher Isaac Stone
March 10, 1974
Residence Corte Madera, California, USA
Education Northeastern University (attended) University of Massachusetts (attended)
Occupation Creative director, software engineer, businessperson
Net worth Increase US$ 200 million

Christopher Isaac "Biz" Stone[1][2] (born March 10, 1974)[3] is a co-founder of Twitter, Inc and also helped to create and launch Xanga, Odeo, The Obvious Corporation and Medium. In 2012, Stone co-founded a start-up called Jelly Industries where he serves as CEO. The release of the Jelly app, a Q&A platform that relies on images, was officially announced in January 2014.[4]

Education

Stone graduated from Wellesley High School in Wellesley, Massachusetts.[5] He attended, but did not graduate from, both Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts Boston.[6]

Career

Aside from Twitter, Stone is an angel investor and advisor in the startup community having backed companies in a diversity of industries such as Square, Nest Labs, Beyond Meat, Medium, Lift and GoodFit. Stone is a board director at Beyond Meat, Medium, GoodFit and his newest startup, Jelly Industries.

Stone made his directorial debut working alongside Ron Howard and Canon USA to direct a short film as a part of Project Imaginat10n. Stone described the opportunity as a chance to scratch a long-time creative itch.[7] Stone is also Executive Producer on WIRED, a dramatic series set in the 70s about the birth of computer industry.

From 2003 to 2005, Stone was employed by Google.[8]

Awards and honors

Stone, along with Evan Williams, was named 2009 Nerd of the Year by GQ magazine,[9] one of the Most Influential People in The World by Time magazine,[10] Entrepreneur of the Decade by Inc. magazine,[11] and one of Vanity Fair's Top Ten Most Influential People of the Information Age.[12] Stone was honored with the International Center for Journalists' first Innovation Award in 2010.[13]

Stone holds an honorary Doctor of Laws from Babson College,[14] and is a Fellow [15] at Oxford University. [16]

Published works

Stone has published two books about blogging, Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content (New Riders, 2002) and Who Let The Blogs Out? (St Martins, 2004).[17] In addition to his long running personal blog, Stone has published an op-ed piece in The Atlantic.[18] In June 2012, Hachette's Grand Central Publishing and executive editor Ben Greenberg announced that Stone was writing a book called Things A Little Bird Told Me, which was published in April 2014.[19]

Personal life

Stone is a vegan,[20] which he became after visiting Farm Sanctuary, and is involved in causes including animal welfare, environmentalism, poverty, health and education.[21] Stone is an advisor and contributor to DonorsChoose, a nonprofit organisation helping classrooms in need.

Stone lives in Marin County, California with his wife Livia and his son Jacob.[22] He and his wife founded and operate the Biz and Livia Stone Foundation, which supports education and conservation in California.[23]

References

  1. ↑ "How I Got My Name". Retrieved 6 February 2012.
  2. ↑ Biz Stone (2000-04-12). "Biz Stone:No Emails Today". Retrieved 2009-02-15.
  3. ↑ Stone, Biz. "Today is my birthday—I'm in my 30's!". Twitter. Twitter. Retrieved 2010-03-10.
  4. ↑ Lunden, Ingrid (January 7, 2014). "Jelly, Biz Stone’s New Q&A Platform, Uses Images To Find Answers". Retrieved January 24, 2014.
  5. ↑ "Who should be the 2009 Bostonian of the Year?". The Boston Globe. December 14, 2009.
  6. ↑ "Twitter's Biz Stone To Be Executive Fellow At UC Berkeley's Haas School". The Huffington Post. September 21, 2011.
  7. ↑ Temple, James. August 29, 2012. Twitter's Biz Stone to direct short film
  8. ↑ Jay Yarow (November 2, 2013). "Biz Stone Walked Away From $2 Million In Google Stock When He Decided To Join The Struggling Startup That Eventually Became Twitter". Business Insider.
  9. ↑ <2009 GQ Men of the Year>
  10. ↑ Kutcher, Ashton (April 30, 2009). "The Twitter Guys". Time.
  11. ↑ <The Entrepreneurs of the Decade: 2000 to 2009>
  12. ↑ <The Vanity Fair 100>
  13. ↑ Arteaga, Dawn. "Washington Post's David Ignatius and Twitter's Biz Stone To Be Honored at ICFJ Awards Dinner". ICFJ. ICFJ. Retrieved 2011-09-29.
  14. ↑ <Biz Stone Ugrad Commencement Speaker>
  15. ↑ <Biz Stone>
  16. ↑ Malone, Michael (April 19, 2009). "The Twitter Revolution". WSJ.
  17. ↑ Stone, Biz. "About bizstone". Flickr. Yahoo!. Retrieved 2008-11-07.
  18. ↑ Stone, Biz (October 19, 2012). "Exclusive: Biz Stone on Twitter and Activism". The Atlantic.
  19. ↑ Heilpern, John (April 2014)"Out to Lunch with Biz Stone", Vanity Fair. Retreieved May 19, 2014.
  20. ↑ Dowd, Maureen (April 22, 2009). "To Tweet or Not to Tweet". The New York Times.
  21. ↑ Evangelista, Benny (May 2, 2010). "Twitter's Ben Stone supports social causes". SFGate.
  22. ↑ Towle, Mimi (August 2010). "Biz Stone". Marin Magazine.
  23. ↑ Schawbel, Dan. June 14, 2012. Biz Stone on His Biggest Challenges, Influences and the Future of Social Media forbes.com

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Twitter.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Biz Stone.