In the final instalment of our three part chat with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, he discusses the site’s crucial moments so far — and explains where he thinks the company is going.
Last week I met up with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone to discuss life at the company, and to find out what things are like inside the most talked-about startup in the world.
This is an edited transcript of the interview: in previous posts we have discussed the culture inside Twitter and responding to criticism. Today, in the final section, we hear about the crucial moments that have kept Twitter going, and — including the revelation that the site may only ever be “a company of hundreds”.
What have the real turning points been?
Biz Stone: I think there’s been a lot of those — they just keep happening.
Obviously SXSW 2007, when we realised that we had something that groups of people could use to coordinate and communicate and move as one in real time. Then subsequent earthquakes, wild fires and other dramatic disasters — where people were then helping each other with the tool — were eye-opening.
When we made the acquisition of the Summize team it was funny, because we loved what they were doing and we had to go and meet with them in person to make sure that they were going to work culturally with is if we bought the company. Within about five or 10 minutes of talking to these guys, I leaned back and told Ev “These guys are really smart — we could be the jerks here”.
We’d gone to evaluate them, but we had to make sure we were on our best behaviour because they were really great guys — they weren’t just smart; we couldn’t wait to have them join us. They plugged right into Twitter and got right to work — they were influential, especially Greg [Pass] our director of engineering, navigating us through those technical challenges and getting us to a place where we are able to handle world event after world event; the US elections, recently the passing of Michael Jackson was a global event.
We saw instantly more than two times the number of tweets per second being both created and sent out. Instantly. A huge test of the system that was completely unexpected, and that’s what you have to be prepared for — and that’s what these guys set us on the path to doing.
And it’s not just Greg, it’s the other wonderful engineers like Evan Weaver [infrastructure and performance], Nick [Nick Kallen, engineer] and the other guys — smart guy after smart guy attracted to us, and attracted to our problems, which is wonderful to have.
Twitter has grown significantly — from around 20 employees last year, you now have more than 50. Do you intent to keep growing? And for how long?
BS: For the next year, yes. We may even double in size. We’re picking out a new office down the street, which is a shame because we spent all the time painting birds on the walls … but we’re going to move to a bigger office, hire more people.
But we’re still innovating on what it means to be a company — do we need to be a company of thousands? Maybe not. Maybe we can be a company of hundreds and still bring Twitter to a huge number of people around the world.
When do you know it’s enough? When do you think Twitter will have reached your objectives?
BS: The day we decide we’ve figured it all out and that we know everything is the day we’ve closed the door to a lot of wonderful opportunities. “We’re clever, we’ve figured it all out, we’re geniuses”.
Wasn’t there a scientist in the 17 or 1800s who said we’ve discovered everything there is to discover, and his peers all agreed with him? How crazy does that sound? For Twitter to sit and say ‘we’ve figured that all out’? It just sounds crazy.
You’ve been involved in startups before. Does this feel different?
BS: Yeah, it’s just much faster. Everything about Twitter goes faster. I often joke with Ev and often say any decision you think we’re going to need to make two years from now, we’ll probably have to make it tomorrow.
Everything’s been faster; it’s grown faster, we move faster. It’s funny, because it’s almost not unique to Twitter — we’ve just entered an era where things are happening faster … and as a result we need tools to help us make decisions faster.
Those decisions can’t be sloppy, they need to be smart, so we need tools to help us operate and Twitter is one of those tools. So it’s almost like it’s feeding itself. We live in a world where we need things like Twitter in order to make smart decisions on the fly, and in order to move like a flock of birds around an object in flight.
But isn’t Twitter helping to create a world that requires instant decisions?
BS: Maybe it is. It’s hard to tell. But doesn’t it feel like everything in your life is suddenly moving faster than it did before too? – guardian.co.uk