SXSW Interactive 2014: Biz Stone Talks Twitter, Jelly, and the Philosophy of Connectivity

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Complex Original

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Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter and current CEO of Jelly held a talk at SXSW Interactive this afternoon. Stone discussed the early days of Twitter, particularly the launch of the social network at SXSW, and advice he’s learned over the years.

Best-selling author Steven Johnson moderated the chat with Stone, who started off by sharing a lesson he learned from middle school relative to his success. "In order to succeed spectacularly," Stone began, "you must be willing to fail spectacularly.” 

Twitter launched at SXSW in 2007, and, not long after, became popular across the globe due to its use in overseas protests and the Occupy Wall Street movement.

After leaving Twitter several years ago, Stone admitted he became more philosophical, and often wondered, "Why are we such a connected society?" 

After leaving Twitter several years ago, Stone admitted he became more philosophical, and often wondered, 'Why are we such a connected society?'

Stone, who described himself as “an Internet guy who believes in the triumph of humanity with a little bit of help from technology," shared his basic fundamental belief that, “people are good and if you build the right tools to help them do good things, they’ll do it on a daily basis."

Stone said he and a friend came up with the idea for Jelly by mistake. They wanted to build a search engine, but because of Google’s dominance—where Stone was once an employee—they were discouraged. So the duo thought about what a search engine for today’s world would look like, and thus Jelly was created (he described Jelly as an “oracle of our day"). The idea of Jelly, Stone said, isn’t to search the Internet but instead to use it to answer any question you may have. The app crowd sources questions for information and provides feedback to users instantly.

Jelly, which is only a few months old, launched with a lot of buzz but has yet to really make a name for itself. Only time will tell if Stone’s latest startup will become a huge hit like Twitter did. 

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