Skip to main content

The context you need, when you need it

When news breaks, you need to understand what actually matters — and what to do about it. At Vox, our mission to help you make sense of the world has never been more vital. But we can’t do it on our own.

We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today?

Join now

Nice Guy Biz Stone Interviewed by Not-So-Nice Gal Me (Video)

In which the Twitter co-founder and the grumpy journalist match wits.

edritger.com

A few weeks ago, I interviewed Twitter co-founder Biz Stone at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club about his book, “Things a Little Bird Told Me: Confessions of the Creative Mind.”

“My perspective tends to be hallucinogenically optimistic,” said Stone, among other happy things in what Nellie Bowles called a “nice-guys-finish-first treatise.”

She noted: “He sums it up in three points: Creativity is a renewable resource. Opportunity can be manufactured. And there’s compound impact in altruism.”

In contrast, I — with a perhaps polar opposite personality to Stone’s — asked him about what I considered the “hipster ‘Game of Thrones’” antics in the founding of the social communications company and actually got Stone to do a very wicked impression of his other founders, Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams.

Mission accomplished!

Actually, it is a very fun interview, which you can watch in its entirety below. “I always felt I was the Oscar-winning supporting actor” at Twitter, said Stone to me. Well, it was a pretty good performance from Stone, whose new question-and-answer app, Jelly, launched in January.

Enjoy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqfUUBUBcy4

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

More in Technology

Technology
The case for AI realismThe case for AI realism
Technology

AI isn’t going to be the end of the world — no matter what this documentary sometimes argues.

By Shayna Korol
Politics
OpenAI’s oddly socialist, wildly hypocritical new economic agendaOpenAI’s oddly socialist, wildly hypocritical new economic agenda
Politics

The AI company released a set of highly progressive policy ideas. There’s just one small problem.

By Eric Levitz
Future Perfect
Human bodies aren’t ready to travel to Mars. Space medicine can help.Human bodies aren’t ready to travel to Mars. Space medicine can help.
Future Perfect

Protecting astronauts in space — and maybe even Mars — will help transform health on Earth.

By Shayna Korol
Podcasts
The importance of space toilets, explainedThe importance of space toilets, explained
Podcast
Podcasts

Houston, we have a plumbing problem.

By Peter Balonon-Rosen and Sean Rameswaram
Technology
What happened when they installed ChatGPT on a nuclear supercomputerWhat happened when they installed ChatGPT on a nuclear supercomputer
Technology

How they’re using AI at the lab that created the atom bomb.

By Joshua Keating
Future Perfect
Humanity’s return to the moon is a deeply religious missionHumanity’s return to the moon is a deeply religious mission
Future Perfect

Space barons like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk don’t seem religious. But their quest to colonize outer space is.

By Sigal Samuel