Christopher Isaac "Biz" Stone[1][2] (born March 10, 1974)[3] is an American entrepreneur who is a co-founder of Twitter, among other technology companies. Stone was the creative director at Xanga from 1999 to 2001.[4] Stone co-founded Jelly, with Ben Finkel. Jelly was launched in 2014 and was a search engine driven by visual imagery and discovery. Stone was Jelly's CEO until its acquisition by Pinterest in 2017.[5]
Biz Stone | |
|---|---|
 Stone in 2007 | |
| Born | Christopher Isaac Stone March 10, 1974 |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Occupation(s) | Creative director, software engineer, businessperson |
| Known for | co-founder of Twitter, Jelly |
| Spouse | Livia Stone |
Education
editStone graduated from Wellesley High School in Wellesley, Massachusetts.[6] He attended Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts Boston, but did not graduate from either.[7]
Career
edit
From 2003 to 2005, Stone held a senior leadership role at Google.[8]
Stone co-founded the social network Twitter in 2006 and left the company in 2011.[9]
Stone made his directorial debut in 2012, working alongside Ron Howard and Canon USA to direct a short film, Evermore, as a part of Project Imaginat10n.[10] Stone is also an advisor to Zoic Studios, and an Executive Producer of the documentary Eating Animals along with Natalie Portman.[11]
Stone returned to Twitter in 2017[9] where he remained till 2021.[12][13]
In 2024, Stone joined the board of directors of social network Mastodon's US nonprofit entity.[14]
Aside from Twitter, Stone is an angel investor and advisor in the startup community having backed companies such as Square, Slack, Medium, Nest, Beyond Meat, Pinterest, Intercom, and Faraday. Stone is a board director at Beyond Meat, Medium, Polaroid Swing, Workpop, and Jelly Industries. Stone is the Chairman of Polaroid Swing.[15]
Awards and honors
editAlong with Jack Dorsey, Stone holds the patent for inventing Twitter.[16]
Stone has been honored with the International Center for Journalists Innovation Award, Inc. magazine named him Entrepreneur of the Decade, Time listed him as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World,[17] and GQ named him Nerd of the Year, along with Evan Williams.[18] In 2014, The Economist recognized Stone with an Innovation Award.
In 2015, Stone's Twitter won an Emmy and Stone received CIPR's most prestigious accolade for leadership at the forefront of developing new forms of media.[19]
Stone is a visiting fellow at Oxford University and a member of the Senior Common Room at Exeter College, Oxford. Upon delivering the 2011 commencement, Babson College awarded Stone their highest honorary degree, a Doctor of Laws.[20] and is a Fellow[21] at Oxford University.[22] Stone is an Executive Fellow at University of California, Berkeley.[23]
Published works
editStone has published three books,
- Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content (New Riders, 2002),
- Who Let The Blogs Out? (St Martins, 2004),[24] and
- Things A Little Bird Told Me (Grand Central, 2014).[25][26]
In addition to his long-running personal blog and Medium articles, Stone has published op-eds for The Atlantic[27] and The Times.
Personal life
editStone is Jewish.[28] He is involved in animal rights, veganism,[29] environmentalism, poverty, health and education.[30] Stone is an advisor and contributor to DonorsChoose, a non-profit organization helping classrooms in need.[31]
Stone lives in Marin County, California, with his wife Livia and his son Jacob.[32] He and his wife founded and operate the Biz and Livia Stone Foundation, which supports education and conservation in California.[33]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "How I Got My Name". Archived from the original on January 22, 2012. Retrieved February 6, 2012.
- ^ Biz Stone (April 12, 2000). "Biz Stone:No Emails Today". Archived from the original on February 13, 2010. Retrieved February 15, 2009.
- ^ Biz Stone [@biz] (March 10, 2010). "Today is my birthday—I'm in my 30's!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- ^ Biz, Stone. "Biz Stone (LinkedIn)". LinkedIn.
- ^ Stone, Biz (March 8, 2017). "Big News—Pinterest Acquires Jelly!". AskJelly.com News. Retrieved January 23, 2019.
- ^ "Who should be the 2009 Bostonian of the Year?". The Boston Globe. December 14, 2009.
- ^ "Twitter's Biz Stone To Be Executive Fellow At UC Berkeley's Haas School". The Huffington Post. September 21, 2011.
- ^ 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.
- ^ a b "Twitter co-founder Biz Stone to rejoin firm". BBC News. May 16, 2017. Retrieved April 29, 2024.
- ^ Temple, James. August 29, 2012. Twitter's Biz Stone to direct short film
- ^ "Eating Animals (2017) - IMDb" – via www.imdb.com.
- ^ Perez, Sarah (January 27, 2023). "Twitter co-founder Biz Stone joins board of audiovisual startup Chroma". TechCrunch. Retrieved December 3, 2024.
- ^ "Twitter co-founder Biz Stone to return to the struggling social-media service". The Washington Post. May 16, 2017.
- ^ Perez, Sarah (April 29, 2024). "Twitter co-founder Biz Stone joins board of Mastodon's new US nonprofit". TechCrunch. Retrieved April 29, 2024.
- ^ "Biz Stone throws his weight behind the Polaroid Swing motion photo app". TechCrunch. July 12, 2016. Retrieved November 22, 2023.
- ^ "Device independent message distribution platform".
- ^ Kutcher, Ashton (April 30, 2009). "The Twitter Guys". Time. Archived from the original on May 2, 2009.
- ^ "GQ Men of the Year>". Archived from <2009 the original on September 6, 2011.
- ^ BIZ STONE AWARDED CIPR PRESIDENT’S MEDAL
- ^ Chmura, Michael (April 8, 2011). "Biz Stone Ugrad Commencement Speaker | News & Events | Babson College". babson.edu. Archived from the original on April 4, 2012.
- ^ "Biz Stone | Saïd Business School". Saïd Business School. Archived from the original on December 17, 2013. Alt URL
- ^ Malone, Michael (April 19, 2009). "The Twitter Revolution". WSJ.
- ^ Efrati, Melissa Korn And Amir (September 1, 2011). "Master of 'Biz' Returns to School". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved June 10, 2020.
- ^ "WHO LET THE BLOGS OUT?: A Hyperconnected Peek at the World of Weblogs by Biz Stone". publishersweekly.com. Retrieved December 3, 2024.
- ^ Stone, Biz. "About bizstone". Flickr. Yahoo!. Retrieved November 7, 2008.
- ^ Heilpern, John (April 2014)"Out to Lunch with Biz Stone", Vanity Fair. Retrieved May 19, 2014.
- ^ Stone, Biz (October 19, 2012). "Exclusive: Biz Stone on Twitter and Activism". The Atlantic.
- ^ @Biz (May 10, 2017). "The Google version of Goldman is back. By the way, I'm Jewish. 23andMe! Feel better now?" (Tweet). Archived from the original on January 2, 2024 – via Twitter.
- ^ Mishler, Jennifer (November 15, 2011). "Watch: Biz Stone on His Love for Turkeys and Farm Sanctuary". Ecorazzi.
- ^ Evangelista, Benny (May 2, 2010). "Twitter's Ben Stone supports social causes". SFGate.
- ^ "Meet the Team | DonorsChoose". www.donorschoose.org.
- ^ Towle, Mimi (August 2010). "Biz Stone". Marin Magazine. Archived from the original on January 24, 2012. Retrieved September 24, 2011.
- ^ Schawbel, Dan. June 14, 2012. Biz Stone on His Biggest Challenges, Influences and the Future of Social Media forbes.com
External links
edit
