Things a Little Bird Told Me

February 24, 2014
The way to succeed in business is to gamble your future, follow your bliss, and save the world, according to this effusive but callow memoir-cum-motivational manifesto by the co-founder of Twitter. Stone narrates a classic Silicon Valley romance: shoe-string startup with a crazy yet banal idea; explosive network growth; avalanche of wealth that leaves its recipient modest, , and abrim with grandiose theories about “human flocking.” Unfortunately, his picture of Twitter—aka “a triumph of humanity”—is sketchy and idealized. We learn little about how the company makes money when it’s not undermining tyrannies and giving to charity, and Stone’s own role is vague: he brainstorms Twitter’s bird logo and troubleshoots with irate customers, but his main job description seems to be “embodying and communicating the spirit of the thing” and “buil a moral compass and a righteous soul into the company.” He distills his life experiences into self-help sermonettes that talk loudly but tread lightly. (“e willing to die to achieve your goals. Figuratively, of course.”) Stone often writes with considerable self-deprecating charm—his portrait of Facebook mogul Mark Zuckerberg as a humorless noodge is priceless—but when he dilates on his philosophy of thrill-seeking entrepreneurship, one longs for a 140-character limit.

April 1, 2014
The co-founder of Twitter shares wisdom on the business of success. Tech pioneer Stone (Who Let the Blogs Out?: A Hyperconnected Peek at the World of Weblogs, 2004, etc.) has the best intentions when he counsels readers to develop and challenge the ideas we prize most. By "merging your abilities with your ambitions," he writes, the keys to becoming successful entrepreneurs are within reach. His book, an effective hybrid of memoir and motivational guidebook, charts Stone's own triumph from humble beginnings spent tirelessly cultivating Xanga, his first startup web company, which struggled but never did anything but plunge him and his girlfriend deep into debt. It did, however, familiarize him with fellow tech wunderkind Evan Williams. That association would place him on Google's doorstep in 2003, vying for a position developing Williams' program Blogger. Dipping into podcasting and a few smaller startup ideas kept Stone focused once he'd separated from Google, but the brainstorming (what he dubs "the two-week hackathon"), which became the impetus for Twitter, is both exciting, ingenious and exciting to read about. Specifics on this Silicon Valley success story were soon drafted, such as the 140-character limit ("constraint inspires creativity"), how to troubleshoot its numerous platform failures, and how to further Twitter's public appeal and functionality ("the mechanics of flocking"). Twitter's explosion onto the tech map would bring about a proposal from Facebook honcho Mark Zuckerberg, described in deliciously vicarious detail by Stone, who's obviously not a fan. More personal insights on his veganism and altruism follows, all written with a chatty, amiable sensibility that makes Stone emerge as one of the more benign web-app execs to burst from the California tech gold mine. Perceptive, motivational advice for geeks and nongeeks alike, all interwoven with the true story of how Twitter found its flock.

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April 1, 2014
Twitter cofounder Stone dropped out of college to design book jackets, just one of the quirky turns of fate that set him on a nonlinear path to social-media entrepreneurship. He recounts having enough chutzpah to call himself a genius when he suffered lack of confidence and direction, enough audacity to ask for a job at Google on the strength of his experience as a blogger when he lacked a college degree, never mind a PhD in computer science. He and Evan Williams, who joined Google after selling Blogger, later left the relative safety of Google to start several ventures, most of which failed, before developing Twitter. While chronicling his setbacks and successes, Stone offers solid advice and inspiration: opportunity can be manufactured, creativity is a renewable resource, embrace constraints, failures can be assets, asking questions is free, empathy is essential to success. Readers will enjoy the tales of the ups and downs of Silicon Valley among major players, from Google to Apple to Facebook, as well as the insightful advice that can be applied to any career or enterprise.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

November 15, 2013

Billed as a memoir, this book is as much a guide to thinking differently, staying creative, and making one's opportunities--advice you'll want to take from the cofounder of Twitter. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.