Author: Biz Stone
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Date: April 1, 2014
Length: 237 Pages
About The Author
Biz Stone was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1974. For the past decade, Stone has been developing large scale projects that facilitate the open exchange of information. He is the Co-founder of Twitter and advisor to several technology startups.
The Beginnings of Twitter
How did Biz Stone and his associates come up with the idea for Twitter?
Biz Stone shares many fascinating behind-the-scenes happenings that tell how Twitter started and how it grew to become a world-wide platform for posting messages of 140 characters or less.
Mr. Stone started out as a blogger and graphic designer. He was the heart behind the Twitter team and used his skills to communicate with users and grow the business.
Biz Stone tells about how he was responsible for all the customer service communications when the Twitter servers went down. It was up to him to contact users and let them know that the problems were being addressed by the Twitter engineers.
He explains how Twitter made it's public debut at the South by Southwest Conference in 2007. Large TV monitors were set up in the halls and people could read the tweets as they moved from room to room.
Twitter fans will be captivated by the stories behind the little blue bird.
My Thoughts
I really enjoyed the candid and open style that Mr. Stone used in this book. He pretty much tells it all. There are no huge scandals or earth-shattering secrets, but you come away from this book feeling like you have known Biz for his entire life.
He tells about his childhood and how his family was "dirt poor" and were frequently down-sizing to more affordable homes. He tells about his high school years when he realized that he just didn't have time to do homework so he instigated a "no homework policy" and he convinced his teachers to just grade him on work he did in class.
I think the most impressive part of this story is end. Mr. and Mrs. Stone have not let their financial success change them. They have given generous amounts of money to charities and continue to do so.
This is an inspirational book that will have readers tweeting for joy. Highly recommended!
My Rating: 5 STARS OUT OF 5
FYI ~ I received a complimentary digital copy of this book to read and review from NetGalley.
