Christopher Isaac "Biz" Stone (born March 10, 1974) is an American entrepreneur who is a co-founder of

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

, among other tech companies. Stone was the creative director at Xanga from 1999-2001. Stone co-founded Jelly, with Ben Finkel. Jelly was launched in 2014 and was a search engine driven by visual imagery and discovery. Stone was Jelly's CEO until its acquisition by

Pinterest Pinterest is an American social media service for publishing and discovery of information in the form of digital Bulletin board, pinboards. This includes recipes, home, style, motivation, and inspiration on the Internet using image sharing. Pint ...

in 2017.

Education

Stone graduated from

Wellesley High School Wellesley High School is a public high school in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States, educating students on grades 9 through 12. The principal is Jamie Chisum, who took the position in 2014 after the departure of Andrew Keough. As of 202 ...

Wellesley, Massachusetts Wellesley () is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Wellesley is part of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. The population was 29,550 at the time of the 2020 census. Wellesley College, Babson College, and a campus of M ...

. He attended

Northeastern University Northeastern University (NU or NEU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was founded by the Boston Young Men's Christian Association in 1898 as an all-male instit ...

and the

University of Massachusetts Boston The University of Massachusetts Boston (stylized as UMass Boston) is a Public university, public US-based research university. It is the only public research university in Boston and the third-largest campus in the five-campus University of Ma ...

, but did not graduate from either.

Career

From 2003 to 2005, Stone held a senior leadership role at

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

. Stone co-founded the social network

in 2006 and left the company in 2011. Stone made his directorial debut in 2012, working alongside

Ron Howard Ronald William Howard (born March 1, 1954) is an American filmmaker and actor. Howard started his career as a child actor before transitioning to directing films. Over his six-decade career, Howard has received List of awards and nominations r ...

and Canon USA to direct a short film, Evermore, as a part of Project Imaginat10n. Stone is also an advisor to Zoic Studios, and an Executive Producer of the documentary '' Eating Animals'' along with

Natalie Portman Natalie Hershlag{{efn, Some Hebrew sources claim that her birth name was "Neta-Lee Hershleg" ({{langx, he, נטע-לי הרשלג) and later, her first name was Americanized to "Natalie". {{Cite news , last=Shamir , first=Oron , date=August ...

. Stone returned to

in 2017 where he remained till 2021. In 2024, Stone joined the board of directors of social network

Mastodon A mastodon, from Ancient Greek μαστός (''mastós''), meaning "breast", and ὀδούς (''odoús'') "tooth", is a member of the genus ''Mammut'' (German for 'mammoth'), which was endemic to North America and lived from the late Miocene to ...

's US nonprofit entity. Aside from Twitter, Stone is an

angel investor An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital to a business or businesses, including startups, usually in exchange for convertible de ...

and advisor in the startup community having backed companies such as

Square In geometry, a square is a regular polygon, regular quadrilateral. It has four straight sides of equal length and four equal angles. Squares are special cases of rectangles, which have four equal angles, and of rhombuses, which have four equal si ...

, Slack,

Medium Medium may refer to: Aircraft *Medium bomber, a class of warplane * Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''The Medium'' (1921 film), a German silent film * ''The Medium'' (1951 film), a film vers ...

Nest A nest is a structure built for certain animals to hold Egg (biology), eggs or young. Although nests are most closely associated with birds, members of all classes of vertebrates and some invertebrates construct nests. They may be composed of ...

, Beyond Meat,

Intercom An intercom, also called an intercommunication device, intercommunicator, or interphone, is a stand-alone voice communications system for use within a building, small collection of buildings or portably within a small coverage area, which funct ...

, and Faraday. Stone is a board director at Beyond Meat, Medium, Polaroid Swing, Workpop, and Jelly Industries. Stone is the Chairman of Polaroid Swing.

Awards and honors

Along with

Jack Dorsey Jack Patrick Dorsey (born November 19, 1976) is an American businessperson, who is a co-founder of Twitter, Inc. and its CEO during 2007–2008 and 2015–2021, as well as co-founder, principal executive officer and chairman of Block, Inc. (deve ...

, Stone holds the patent for inventing Twitter. Stone has been honored with the

International Center for Journalists International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) is a non-profit, professional organization located in Washington, D.C., United States, that promotes journalism worldwide. Since 1984, the International Center for Journalists has worked directly with ...

Innovation Award, ''Inc.'' magazine named him Entrepreneur of the Decade, ''Time'' listed him as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World, and '' GQ'' named him Nerd of the Year, along with Evan Williams. In 2014, ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...

'' recognized Stone with an Innovation Award. In 2015, Stone's Twitter won an

Emmy The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award catego ...

and Stone received CIPR's most prestigious accolade for leadership at the forefront of developing new forms of media. Stone is a visiting fellow at

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

and a member of the Senior Common Room at

Exeter College, Oxford Exeter College (in full: The Rector and Scholars of Exeter College in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, and the fourth-oldest college of the university. The college was founde ...

. Upon delivering the 2011 commencement,

Babson College Babson College is a Private university, private business school in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States specializing in entrepreneurship education. Founded in 1919 by Roger Babson, the college was established as the Babson Institute in his We ...

awarded Stone their highest honorary degree, a Doctor of Laws. and is a Fellow at

. Stone is an Executive Fellow at

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

Published works

Stone has published three books, * ''Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content'' (New Riders, 2002), * ''Who Let The Blogs Out?'' (St Martins, 2004), and * ''Things A Little Bird Told Me'' (Grand Central, 2014). In addition to his long-running personal

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

and Medium articles, Stone has published

op-ed An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page," is a type of written prose commonly found in newspapers, magazines, and online publications. They usually represent a writer's strong and focused opinion on an issue of relevance to a targeted a ...

s for ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...

'' and ''The Times''.

Personal life

Stone is Jewish. He is involved in

animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all Animal consciousness, sentient animals have Moral patienthood, moral worth independent of their Utilitarianism, utility to humans, and that their most basic interests—such as ...

veganism Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products and the consumption of animal source foods, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. A person who practices veganism is known as a vega ...

environmentalism Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement about supporting life, habitats, and surroundings. While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of green ideology and politics, ecolog ...

poverty Poverty is a state or condition in which an individual lacks the financial resources and essentials for a basic standard of living. Poverty can have diverse Biophysical environmen ...

health Health has a variety of definitions, which have been used for different purposes over time. In general, it refers to physical and emotional well-being, especially that associated with normal functioning of the human body, absent of disease, p ...

and

education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...

. Stone is an advisor and contributor to

DonorsChoose DonorsChoose is a United States–based nonprofit organization that allows individuals to donate directly to public school classroom projects. The organization has been given Charity Navigator's highest rating every year since 2005. As of June 20 ...

, a non-profit organization helping classrooms in need. Stone lives in

Marin County, California Marin County ( ) is a County (United States), county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat a ...

, with his wife Livia and his son Jacob. He and his wife founded and operate the Biz and Livia Stone Foundation, which supports education and conservation in California.Schawbel, Dan. June 14, 2012
Biz Stone on His Biggest Challenges, Influences and the Future of Social Media

forbes.com ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The c ...

References

External links

* *
Biz Stone interview with The Swellesley Report, about his growing up in Wellesley, MA

Biz Stone Q&A with Boston Globe Magazine

Biz Stone Responds to Malcolm Gladwell's Critique of Twitter
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stone, Biz 1974 births Living people American bloggers American computer businesspeople American computer programmers American technology chief executives Businesspeople from Massachusetts Businesspeople from San Francisco Wellesley High School alumni Twitter, Inc. people Place of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American Jews