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Biz Stone

Co-Founder and Partner, Future Positive · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderinvestorexecutiveauthor@biz ↗bizstone.com ↗Wikipedia ↗Instagram ↗

Biz Stone is best known for co-founding Twitter, Medium, and Jelly Industries. He is an early-stage investor and venture capitalist who authored several books, including Things a Little Bird Told Me.

12statements → 5claims → 5claims resolved → 80%fully supported → 3.92/5average certainty → 2.08/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 14said about them ↓

4 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted how the 5 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

5 assertions · 2 opinions · 3 insights · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 5 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 5 are resolved. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Biz argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Twitter's board failed to find a better CEO than Jack Dorsey
“There was a committee of the board that was trying to find somebody else, and they weren't able to find anyone better than Jack.”
Biz Stone Jan 8, 2021 ▶ 15:29 20VC: Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone on The 3 Stages of Wealth, The Return To Twitter in 2017 and the Associated Missions and Challenges & Why Silicon Valley is not an "Insiders Only" Universe?

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
100% certainty 3
75% certainty 4
100% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: speaking style how? →

258 words/min while actually speaking · 5.4 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Biz Stone: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 24 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 6,059 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Biz Stone is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 2 rated episodes:

host pushback ▾ 1.5/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 1.5/10
setup questions received 83%

Everything Biz Stone said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Supported
Twitter's board failed to find a better CEO than Jack Dorsey
“There was a committee of the board that was trying to find somebody else, and they weren't able to find anyone better than Jack.”
Biz Stone Jan 8, 2021 ▶ 15:29 20VC: Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone on The 3 Stages of Wealth, The Return To Twitter in 2017 and the Associated Missions and Challenges & Why Silicon Valley is not an "Insiders Only" Universe?
Assertion Partly supported
Twitter suffered shrinking users, brain drain, and zero profit before 2017
“The company was not doing well. I mean, sort of ethically, it was the company itself was shrinking. It was a, there was a brain drain and there was also the user base was shrinking. There wasn't revenue or profit. And nobody felt like Twitter was a special pla…”
Biz Stone Jan 8, 2021 ▶ 16:37 20VC: Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone on The 3 Stages of Wealth, The Return To Twitter in 2017 and the Associated Missions and Challenges & Why Silicon Valley is not an "Insiders Only" Universe?
Opinion
UK VCs are excessively risk-averse compared to US investors
“I do feel in general, there's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy happening there where VCs don't really want to take that much of a risk. And so contrary to what it's like in the States, I feel like they often will offer something like a hundred or 200,000 in …”
Biz Stone Jan 8, 2021 ▶ 32:27 20VC: Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone on The 3 Stages of Wealth, The Return To Twitter in 2017 and the Associated Missions and Challenges & Why Silicon Valley is not an "Insiders Only" Universe?
Insight
Founders shouldn't start a company without a 10-year commitment
“Unless you want to work on something for 10 years, at least, I don't think you should make a start about it, because it just means you don't have what it's going to take when everything's going really badly, and you're not going to want to see it through.”
Biz Stone Jan 8, 2021 ▶ 6:12 20VC: Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone on The 3 Stages of Wealth, The Return To Twitter in 2017 and the Associated Missions and Challenges & Why Silicon Valley is not an "Insiders Only" Universe?
Opinion
Suppressing personal identity at work creates a soulless company culture
“I think it would be kind of soulless if everyone just said, I'm going to bring half myself to work and it's going to be the political side and I'm not going to share any of this or that.”
Biz Stone Jan 8, 2021 ▶ 20:01 20VC: Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone on The 3 Stages of Wealth, The Return To Twitter in 2017 and the Associated Missions and Challenges & Why Silicon Valley is not an "Insiders Only" Universe?
Disclosure
Stone spent six months unwittingly hurting morale upon returning to Twitter
“I kind of barged in like a bull in a china shop. I was advised that, you know, you're under a magnifying glass. You should really you know, be careful. And I thought to myself, oh yeah, I know what that's like. Don't worry about me. Yeah. We've been in under a…”
Biz Stone Jan 8, 2021 ▶ 21:36 20VC: Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone on The 3 Stages of Wealth, The Return To Twitter in 2017 and the Associated Missions and Challenges & Why Silicon Valley is not an "Insiders Only" Universe?
Assertion Supported
Stone's angel investment in Square yielded a 1,000x return
“Oh, that would probably be square because it's something like a thousand X return or something.”
Biz Stone Jan 8, 2021 ▶ 31:36 20VC: Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone on The 3 Stages of Wealth, The Return To Twitter in 2017 and the Associated Missions and Challenges & Why Silicon Valley is not an "Insiders Only" Universe?
Insight
Prioritizing great collaborators over venture safety consistently pays off
“When I found somebody that I enjoyed working with and liked as a person, I stayed with them, no matter how risky it was, and that was paying off.”
Biz Stone Jan 8, 2021 ▶ 5:20 20VC: Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone on The 3 Stages of Wealth, The Return To Twitter in 2017 and the Associated Missions and Challenges & Why Silicon Valley is not an "Insiders Only" Universe?
Assertion Supported
Stone put 'Seinfeld of the internet' on early Twitter homepage
“When we were doing Twitter, somebody early on said, Twitter is the Seinfeld of the internet. It's a website about nothing, and the first thing I thought was, wow, Seinfeld's a hit show, and I put it as a testimonial on the rotating testimonials I put on the we…”
Biz Stone Jan 8, 2021 ▶ 7:15 20VC: Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone on The 3 Stages of Wealth, The Return To Twitter in 2017 and the Associated Missions and Challenges & Why Silicon Valley is not an "Insiders Only" Universe?
Insight
Trusting your future self creates a safety net for taking risks
“Future biz will get current biz out of whatever jam he's getting himself into. And I guess it was kind of an excuse to do crazy things because I did sort of say out loud that, well, no matter what I do here, if it doesn't work, my future self will figure out h…”
Biz Stone Jan 8, 2021 ▶ 13:03 20VC: Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone on The 3 Stages of Wealth, The Return To Twitter in 2017 and the Associated Missions and Challenges & Why Silicon Valley is not an "Insiders Only" Universe?
Assertion Supported
Dorsey and Stone established Twitter's purpose as serving the public conversation
“What I did when I came in is, is Jack and I hammered out a purpose statement for Twitter. The answer to the question, why do we exist? Because before that, if we asked around at the company, you know, what's the purpose of Twitter's existence? People would say…”
Biz Stone Jan 8, 2021 ▶ 17:38 20VC: Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone on The 3 Stages of Wealth, The Return To Twitter in 2017 and the Associated Missions and Challenges & Why Silicon Valley is not an "Insiders Only" Universe?
Disclosure
Stone resumed self-managing investments after advisors sold an early holding
“I made one error of judgment because when I started to get some wealth, I hired advisors, and I thought, well, the advisors know what they're doing, so I'll let them be in charge of my investments too. And then their thinking was, okay, well, this is X would s…”
Biz Stone Jan 8, 2021 ▶ 28:07 20VC: Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone on The 3 Stages of Wealth, The Return To Twitter in 2017 and the Associated Missions and Challenges & Why Silicon Valley is not an "Insiders Only" Universe?

The other half of the tape: Biz Stone's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 13 times in 7 episodes on 20VC. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Sumeet Shah 5Eoghan McCabe 3Harry Stebbings 2David Sze 1Chris Sacca 1

Statements about Biz Stone, by other people (1)

Opinion
McCabe: Biz Stone was Intercom's most helpful angel investor
“I think it's Biz Stone, who's one of the Twitter founders invested in. And the reason he was so helpful was that for a young lad, I was 26 when I started Intercom and moved to San Francisco. For a young lad in this big industry who really thought very little o…”
Eoghan McCabe Oct 22, 2020 ▶ 25:37 20VC: Intercom Founder, Eoghan McCabe on How To Deal with the Weight of Expectation, Having Your Identity Tied To Your Company, How To Be Your Authentic Self Even with Stakeholders & Why There Are No Rules

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
00325420152016201720182019202020212022episodesmentions
02420152016201720182019202020212022episodes it came up in
002.525420152016201720182019202020212022episodesmentions per episode
2022 1 mention in 1 episode
2021 4 mentions in 4 episodes 1 per episode
2020 3 mentions in 1 episode
2015 5 mentions in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone on The 3 Stages of Wealth, The Return To Twitter in 201 Jan 8, 2021 25m

Played on the show (1)

Episodes where a recording of Biz Stone was played rather than Biz taking part, or where the tape carries an address with nobody putting questions to them. Listed because the words are on the record, kept out of every score on this page because they were not said on this show. We read this off the tape: who was spoken to, who was asked something, who answered whom.

EpisodeDateOn tapeWhat it is
20VC: Chris Sacca, Chamath Palihapitiya, Gary Vee, Brad Gerstner and more on Their Relatio Oct 28, 2022 1m clip played
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