Things A Little Bird Told Me

by Biz Stone

  Here’s another way of thinking about it. Right now a lot of recent college graduates are having trouble getting jobs. You can go on interviews every day and constantly get rejected. You’re drained; it takes a toll on your confidence. So how about this? How about instead you go volunteer at a nonprofit? Suddenly you’re busy; you’re doing something good; and you’re networking along the way. Maybe you’ll discover that one of the other volunteers has a lead on a job or has a great contact for you. At the very least, you have something to say at your job interview. “I’m volunteering, but I’m looking for full-time work.” You feel good about yourself; you’re glowing with the knowledge that you’re helping others. You exude confidence and productivity. Now when you go to a job interview, all that depth of experience comes through.

  Don’t think of helping other people as giving something away or taking something from yourself. Think of what you’re gaining. It’s a paradox, but helping other people is helping yourself.

  Livy and I live modestly on purpose. I like simple, small, cheap things. Timex watches, Levis, and my VW Golf. Occasionally, when Livy sees me playing with our toddler, Jake, at the park, or when he and I are playing on the floor together, I’ll see tears in Livy’s eyes. I know she’s crying out of happiness. These are the moments that matter most in life, and it can happen on any floor in any house or in any park in any neighborhood. Our version of buying a Lamborghini and owning a giant house is that we give away a lot of money to help others. Helping others gives us a feeling of success. It makes our lives meaningful. And it can do the same for you, regardless of how much money you have to give.

  People are good, and if you give them the right tools, they’ll use them for the right thing. In the course of developing large-scale communication systems with social elements—starting Xanga; working at Blogger; reading books, magazines and blog posts; thinking at a high level about blogging, self-organizing systems, and stuff like that—one of the patterns I recognized from early on was that these communities tend to be self-policing. Sure, there’s some bad behavior. But there is consistently more good than bad. At Twitter, we didn’t need an army of people deleting and blocking accounts. This is why large, unregulated, self-organizing systems with a hundred million people using them can function without much disruption. If people weren’t nice, I couldn’t do my work. It’s quite impressive, but if you think about it, of course we humans must be good at cooperating. If we couldn’t get along, how would we build buildings and streets and follow traffic laws (most of the time)? If we weren’t nice, we wouldn’t have civilization.

  I read an article in Yes! magazine that pointed out that Darwin believed that compassionate communities flourish best and produce the most offspring. So we evolved to be nice. The article also talked about new research that says that on the plains, our ancestors had to learn to share scavenged carcasses. Selfish people were probably cast out. Humans are tribal, and the researcher Michael Tomasello proposes that we’ve evolved to work collaboratively. You and I, we were born to cooperate. The good in the world isn’t just my hallucinogenic optimism. How do you like that? Science!

  And if you give us a simple way to help others, we will.

  Sure, sounds great. Make the world a better place. Help others. It’s easy to say, but as an individual without resources it’s hard to take that beyond a worn-out New Year’s resolution. But this is the beauty of the flocking at Twitter. As soon as people gather into groups, their energy can be harnessed. They can move as one. They can make things happen.

  As soon as I took an interest in the corporate world, I started paying attention to how companies approach social responsibility. Three days after the tragedy of September 11, 2001, I posted on my blog: “Wow, the Amazon Disaster Relief Fund has raised $4.3 million already and it’s growing by the minute.” I was impressed by the immediacy with which a website had used its reach to rally support. Causes need people to congregate, and as communities, corporations are perfectly positioned to promote and inspire charity.

  I’ve already talked about my new definition for capitalism. I want companies to prioritize not only enjoying financial success (which is normal) and bringing joy to employees and consumers, but also having a positive impact on the world.

  Early on, in July 2007, it occurred to us at Twitter that paying to have water bottled and shipped to our office when clean drinking water flowed from the tap was silly, to say the least. In fact, some might go so far as to say it was socially, ecologically, and financially irresponsible. However, folks need to drink water every day. So we devised an official Twitter Inc. water strategy. First, we stopped delivery of bottled water. Next, we bought a water bottle for every employee. Finally, we installed a filter on the tap so the water was tastier. We decided that when guests visited our offices, we would offer them drinking water from our limited stock of Ethos Water. Ethos is a Starbucks subsidiary that raises awareness of the world water crisis and gives a portion of its profit to help children around the world get clean water.

  Twitter’s water strategy had a ripple effect. Not only did we live by our ethics, but we publicly acknowledged a global problem—1.1 billion people on our planet don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water. The result? The nonprofit Charity: Water became the favored charitable organization for Twitter and our users. Soon cities around the world were hosting “Twestivals” to bring together Twitter communities to raise money and awareness for Charity: Water.

  Charity: Water was only the beginning. I kept looking for ways Twitter could have a positive impact on society. When we were fussing with iPods for Odeo, Apple released a red iPod as part of an initiative called Product(RED). I took an interest, and found out that the parent company, (RED), raises funds with the goal of eliminating HIV/AIDS in Africa. I learned from the organization what antiretroviral medication can do for people who are HIV positive. The patients can come back from the brink of death and be able to lead healthy lives. The organization offered a stunning opportunity to help a continent that was devastated by the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

  With the program Product(RED), many companies agreed to sell a red version of their products and to contribute a portion of the proceeds to (RED). Nike sold red shoelaces; Amex created a red card. I liked Product(RED) and started buying red things from them. Soon after Twitter launched, I registered @red as a Twitter handle, though (RED) had no use for it then. I figured that if Twitter was successful, organizations would register for Twitter accounts, and I fantasized that one day we would be big enough that companies would ask for an account, and I’d get to say, “I saved your handle for you.” And indeed, by the end of 2007, when Twitter was getting a lot of attention, (RED) decided they should get involved in social media. They called Twitter and discovered that someone already had the @red account. The message came to me, and I got to call them back and say, “I’m the one who has the at-red account. It’s for you.”

  For World AIDS Day on December 1, 2009, we turned the major elements of our home page red, added a link to (RED)’s Twitter page, offered a red AIDS Day ribbon (a Twibbon, of course) that users could add to their pages, and set up a hashtag, #red, that would turn your Tweet red to highlight mentions of World AIDS Day. It was the first time Twitter had changed its design for a special event.

  And it wasn’t just a cute graphic near our logo. Websites offer a deal called a takeover, in which the advertiser buys up all the ad space across a site (and is charged massive amounts to do so). It’s more than just banner ads; it’s sponsorship of the site. This was essentially what Twitter did for (RED), free of charge. We went red for World AIDS Day. Facebook and Google were participating in World AIDS Day, too, but they would never have changed their sites so dramatically for a charity event.

  Although it wasn’t a grand scheme, our participation helped Twitter. The press coverage lumped us alongside the big players who supported (RED) that day. This is one of the ways in which altruism pays back. The world can’t help but see that your intentions are good, and the
y respond to that.

  I didn’t have the money when I worked with (RED) to turn Twitter red for a day, but there was an immediate compound effect. Ashton Kutcher tweeted to the four million Twitter followers he had at the time, telling them to

  Get involved #red

  He wasn’t the only celebrity to do so. And (RED) parlayed our efforts into many other things. To this day Chrysi Philalithes, the chief digital officer at (RED), says, “When Twitter went red, you put us on the map. We got in with other social media.”

  In 2010 (RED), in partnership with HBO, released a film called The Lazarus Effect, directed by Lance Bangs and executive-produced by Spike Jonze. In it, you can see the stunning results of antiretrovirals (ARVs). You meet several Zambians undergoing ARV treatment for HIV/AIDS. These stories are hard to hear, but the film is ultimately uplifting. There’s an eleven-year-old girl named Bwalya Liteta. She weighs only twenty-four pounds—she’s skeletal, pale, weak. Like the other patients with AIDS, she looks like the walking dead. But with ARVs, two little pills that cost forty cents a day, in a few months’ time she is transformed into a strong, healthy child who can live a normal life. The film also introduces us to a woman named Constance Mudenda. In 2004 Constance, who had lost three children to AIDS, tested positive for HIV. She was one of the first patients at a new ARV clinic that opened thanks to (RED). When the film was made, Connie was in good health and supervising three clinics, dismantling the stigma that HIV used to have in the community. (In 2013, still under ARV treatment and still mourning the children she lost, she gave birth to a baby girl, Lubona. Her daughter is HIV-negative, showing the future that ARVs offer.) The Lazarus Effect, like the letters from the children of DonorsChoose.org, lets people see how their participation saves the lives of real men, women, and children with hopes and dreams.

  Consider the compound effect of the work (RED) does. Ill people get better and return to society. Moms become moms again. Dads are dads again. Teachers go back to teaching. People return to work and school. Over time, (RED) has an actual geoeconomic impact. You can see a village come back to life. And then another one. The whole area starts to stabilize. The black hole of charity that I knew as a child is gone. It’s not about a quarter in a bucket. This work has measurable results. HIV/AIDS is a grave but solvable problem. We can wipe out AIDS. And it didn’t pass my notice that the cost of those pills for one person is forty cents a day. That rounds out to one hundred and forty dollars a year: Twitter’s magic number.

  You and I can solve problems for real. One day there will be an AIDS-free generation. It’s going to be awesome.

  In 2009, Twitter’s user base grew 1,500 percent, and Twitter Inc. grew 500 percent. Some companies are in business only to make a profit. Some organizations exist exclusively to do good. There are also some businesses that earn profit and then make time to do good. Twitter made a tacit promise to the world that it could be a model for doing business in the twenty-first century. I tried to do my part to create a service that made the world better and profited through the effort.

  When folks talk about charity, they often reference Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Twentieth-century psychologist Abraham Maslow’s theory is that the first needs we seek to fill are the basics: food, water, sleep, etc. Next we look for safety, which includes employment, morality, health, and property. Once we achieve that, we look for love and belonging. Then we strive for confidence and respect. Assuming success up to this point, we hit the top of Maslow’s pyramid and discover a more profound need: justification of our very existence. In times of abundance, it’s human nature to seek a more purposeful life. This is often best satisfied by practicing selfless concern for the well-being of others.

  Companies historically follow a similar path—considering altruism as a last thought in a long list of needs. This approach is flawed. It does not take into account the compound interest of helping others.

  In the spring of 2012 I had the privilege of talking with Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative University, an annual meeting where the next generation of leaders gathers to discuss and propose solutions to global issues. I’d heard Clinton say, “The most effective global citizens will be those who succeed in merging their business and philanthropic missions to build a future of shared prosperity and shared responsibility,” and I asked him to elaborate on why he thought this was important. He said that companies grow by bringing more people into the circle of potential customers. But you can grow only so much if billions of people are shut out. He cited three obstacles to growth: abject inequality (half the world lives on less than two dollars a day), political and financial instability, and climate change and resource depletion. He said that companies need to do two things: first, integrate corporate responsibility into their business strategies, and second, support NGOs to take their efforts further. He gave the example of Walmart. When they realized that climate change was real, they cut their packaging across all stores by 5 percent. This had the equivalent impact of taking 211,000 diesel-burning trucks off the road.

  I agreed, and added that companies that don’t align themselves with a cause are at a competitive disadvantage. It’s not just the right thing to do. Industry is either going to destroy the world or save it. It’s in our nature as humans to save ourselves. It’ll be good business.

  Twitter invested early on in altruism, in part because we believed that being a force for good would make us a stronger company. Corporate culture is traditionally hierarchical, with a structure of rules and behaviors like those I pushed back against when I was in high school. We’re given a whole pile of homework when a little extra sleep would go a long way. I wanted Twitter, and other companies following its example, to break out of that mold. We could do business with a higher level of ambition and better ways to measure success. We could embrace our employees’ innate desire to do good. There is value in selflessness. Companies must understand this pattern and develop products that deliver deeper meaning. It’s important that we recognize value before profit. Challenging the very nature of ambition in business is not a well-worn path. Nevertheless, I wanted us to go out of our way to help others, to feel empathy. I wanted our work to be meaningful and rewarding in a variety of ways.

  I told our employees, “We can be a force for good, make lots of money, and laugh while we work.”

  For a company called Room to Read, a charity founded by John Wood, a former Microsoft employee, Twitter launched our own wine label, called Fledgling. We partnered with a winery, and everyone in the company got a chance to help make the wine. We picked and squeezed grapes and produced two kinds of wine: a pinot noir and a chardonnay. We raised money at a wine tasting at the vineyard, and then we sold and auctioned bottles online. All the money we raised went to Room to Read, which buys books for kids in developing nations. If you think about it, it’s symbiotic. If you can’t read, you can’t tweet. The more readers there are in the world, the bigger Twitter’s potential reach.

  Our promise was to deliver value before profit, and I told this to our employees every chance I got. Together we were building something that had real potential for positive and enduring global impact. Our work affected the lives of others in scenarios ranging from simple socializing and getting work done to disaster relief and political rebellion. The Twitter employees could augment humanity in productive and meaningful ways, but only if we approached our work in a manner consistent with this promise.

  Think about it: value before profit. I’ve already talked about the value of incorporating altruism into your life. But in what other ways can you expand the culture of good? How can you make it consistent across your activities? Maybe you are part of the Twitter community and can use it as a tool for giving or to enact change. Maybe there is another community—your place of worship, your children’s school, your town—where a shift in values could inspire alignment with a cause. Independent giving is generous and meaningful, but when we join forces and flock toward a cause, the effect is dazzling.

  The startup
I’d helped found was growing into a corporation. In 2010, I began examining how far I had come, what I had learned, and what my goals were for the future.

  Twitter now had more than one hundred million registered users on the site. We were hiring aggressively and expanding internationally. We were focused on growth and technical stability.

  But change was in the wind.

  It started in Japan. In the first days of October, I was in Tokyo fostering Twitter’s international relations. I had convinced Livia to come with me by promising her that if she waited out my three days of meetings in Tokyo, we could then spend three days doing what most interested her: traveling to Kyoto to see some of its beautiful temples and shrines.

  My second day in Tokyo, a Thursday, I was at a digital conference participating in a panel about hackathons. The next day, among other commitments, I was scheduled to do a YouTube interview with a famous quadriplegic man who was a fan of Twitter. He used Twitter by holding his phone with his shoulder and tweeting with his tongue. On Saturday, Livia and I were to make the promised pilgrimage to Kyoto.

  While I was at the panel, I got a call from Jack Dorsey. He and Evan were my closest friends on the board. Jack said, “Biz, the board is firing Evan. It’s going to be announced at the staff meeting tomorrow. They’re putting Dick [Costolo] in as the interim CEO. You need to get on a plane and be here tomorrow.”

  This was a total shocker.

  Dick Costolo was our COO. We had first hired him in the summer of 2009, though it started out as a joke. Evan was going on paternity leave. Dick was a friend of ours. He had helped found FeedBurner, a web-feed management provider, and went to Google when it bought his company. He did stand-up comedy. We liked him. Ev had texted him on a whim and said, “Hey, want to be interim CEO while I’m on paternity leave?”