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Staff post about: Jack Dorsey Biz Stone and Evan Williams Become an Author

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The Twitter Threesome: How Ev Williams, Biz Stone, and Jack Dorsey Got Their Start

"We got lucky," says Twitter co-founder Biz Stone. "It doesn't mean we're geniuses."

The SMS to Success: Texting Takes Twitter To New Heights

When asked whether they had anticipated just how big Twitter would be when they first launched it, Stone replied, "Yeah, we knew Barack Obama was going to use it." Williams followed with, "I knew I was going to be on Oprah in two years."

Lesson #1: “Creativity comes from constraint”

When asked whether they had anticipated just how big Twitter would be when they first launched it, Stone replied, “Yeah, we knew Barack Obama was going to use it.” Williams followed with, “I knew I was going to be on Oprah in two years.”

Lesson #2: “So what if it’s just fun?”

“We were working at Odeo, but we weren’t as passionate about the podcasting service as we should have been,” recalls Stone. “We weren’t using it, and that was a problem. Twitter got started because Ev gave us some freedom to think along different lines.”

Lesson #3: “There is something healthy about friendly competition”

“There’s a lot we can learn from smart people out in the world,” says Stone. “One of the things I like so much about President Obama is his global vision that it’s not a zero-sum game, where one country is going to win the game of earth. We have to work together.”

Lesson #4: “We focus a lot on culture”

“Watching Ev really sink his teeth into the role of CEO, take it very seriously,” says Stone. “He very genuinely wants to innovate – not just from a product or technology standpoint, but from a company standpoint. For me, I’ve learned about what it means to focus on a culture, to build social responsibility and the idea of a company as a super-organism.”

Lesson #5: “We’re holding on to the ship with our fingernails”

“I remember Ev going home one weekend and coming back with this genius plan for Odeo, and he asked me to read it,” recalls Stone. “It was this whole plan for how we could make it a successful business. I thought wow this is genius, but then again so is podcasting. Then slept on it. Do we want to be kings of podcasting? We were constantly gut checking.”

Text To The Future: How Dorsey, Stone, and Williams Achieved Success

“We wanted to capture that feeling: the physical sensation that you’re buzzing your friend’s pocket. It’s like buzzing all over the world,” recalls Dorsey of the name-choosing process. “We came across the word ‘Twitter’ and it was just perfect. The definition was ‘a short burst of inconsequential information,’ and ‘chirps from birds.’ And that’s exactly what the product was.”

Jack Dosey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams' Quotes

Jack Dosey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams' Quotes

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