Confessions of a creative mind

'It was the people on the ground in the region that made the change, not me, and not my team' says Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter Game-changer? Sure. A winner? Definitely. A Silicon Valley-type millionaire/playboy? Well, not exactly. Biz Stone, one of the co-founders of Twitter, is not the kind of guy you might think. And his "confessional" book, "Things a Little Bird Told Me: Confessions of the Creative Mind" is definitely not the kind of book you might expect.

Here, we are with Stone on the Arab Spring, being a "Ringo Starr," and who would play him if the Twitter story turns into a movie.

According to the book, you seem to be a genuinely nice guy, probably the nicest one in Silicon Valley. Is it hard to be a nice person up there?

No, it's not hard to be nice anywhere. If you enjoy being nice and helping people, then it's not a chore, it's just the way you're wired. That's just what I'm like. I don't work at being nice; I'm just generally nice and helpful. I've found that in the long run, being nice pays off.

It seems like your role at Twitter was more to be a positive force and to keep up the company's spirits. How's it to be like a 'Ringo Starr figure,' the one tying it all together?
 
It came naturally to me so it was okay. At times it was stressful because I wasn't just looking out for my company and my co-workers, I was also looking out for the reputations of my friends and how they would be perceived post-Twitter. Occasionally I had to be not-so-nice.

The book is not including any of the arguments between co-founders. Why?

The book is based on my experience. I didn't interview anyone else. Any arguments I personally had are in the book. Sometimes I argued about the product,...