>> charlie: welcome to the program. we begin this evening with the remembrance to hav of the boston marathon. we talked to mike barnicle, a journalist from boston, and joel steinhaus who ran in the marathon last year and is planning to run again this year. >> i think the focus on the fact that ordinary people fuel the marathon, run the marathon as well as the lines thick with people along all 26 miles cheering goals through wellesley, past boston college down the hills, and you're exhausted and the crowd draws you in comomming down commonwealth avenue and pul-ingè you cançó takeñr another step, that's what the marathonñr skkçó people. >> charlie: and digitalçó journalism with billçóç

>> walt and i are not spring chickens, but it's the most exciting period of our career. we were energized an in a way. >> charlie: and biz stone, founder of twitter. >> reading this book is like looking at the world through my eyes. creativity is a renewable resource, be willing to fail spectacularly if you want to succeed spectacularly. opportunity can be manufactured. these are things we hear over and over again but the stories and the way that i present them, i think, are fresh and are, you know, admittedly allouis -- hallucinogenicly and life affirming. >> charlie: boston marathon

one year later, digital journalism and biz stone when we continue. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> charlie: one year has passed since the boston marathon bombing. three people were killed and more than 260 injured in theçó frcgedy. it marked;orç@+$#ñi deadliesté& terrorist attack in the united states sinceñrçóçó @

triggered an outpouring of compassion and grief from around the world which continues today. a memorial service was held early inside boston's hynes convention center a few blocks from the attack. a moment of silence was observed at 2:49 p.m., the time of the first explosion. vice president joe biden spoke at the ceremony. >> you are "boston strong"! but america is strong! they're not unlike you. all around america, that's what makes us so proud of this city and this state, what makes me so proud to be an american is that we have never ever ever yieldedi to fear, never.çóçóiçw

and will participate in the race next week. welcome, good to have you. you were in the city today that you love. >> i was, indeed. and it was a very mellow feeling in the city today. the overcast weather probably helped the atmosphere. sort of a grey day, but people were optimistic, filled with hope about the upcoming race to beçóñiçó runçó this coming monda lot ofñr thoughtful people walkg around the cityi]ñiçóñiçó ofç(!á occurred, obviously,çó a wsp)ñiç sense of optimism was palpable. >> charlie: clearly, there is a sense of, as we have attributed to boston, a sense of resilience. it was there and proven to be there. what more do we learn about boston in this? >> i don't know that's it's just

restricted to boston, charlie. it's what we learned about ourselves. it's easier to focus on doing well for others, on paying it forward for others than it is on obsessing about the evil that was committed, and i think a lot of that had to do with what occurred in the immediate aftermath of the bombing. everyone was very fortunate, all of theçóçmó maimedlu>÷p'&ñi of e injured and, ofçóñiçóçóñyóç'ilá+ all right there within a mile of four of the finest hospitals in the country. and the immediate response of the paramedics, of all the e.m.t.s and firefighters, there was a particularly poignant element today that involves the firehouse on

boylston street, ladder 15, a young firefighter was working that day, 33 years of age, marine corps, combat veteran, michael kennedy ran the length of boylston street toward the finn finishñiñli>2zñiñv explosions where they just shattered people's eardrums and he died fighting the fire two weeks ago. so there were a lot of thoughts about what we want on. it's easier to help and more healthy to help people than to hate. >> charlie: i've seen one remarkable story of individual recovery after a another. people who thought they would never dance again because they lost a leg. >> i mean, you saw people carted away that day. joel was close to the action

that day, running, when he was stopped, but you saw people carted away that day that you thought would not make it and here they are. >> charlie: remember that for us and where you were, what happened, where your family was. so i was about half a mile from the finish line when they stopped us. when the bombs went off, i was about a mile away. my family, my wife and two daughters, were at the finish line across the street on the grand stand. it was just utter chaos. it was chaos of not knowing -- my story is rea really one of a period of time of not knowing what happened and fearing the worst and sort of expecting the worst. >> charlie: the worst in the loss or injury to your family? >> exactly. now, upon reflection, i think i'm grateful every day. there's clarity of what's important in my life and still a sense of deep sadness and sympathy for those who weren't

as lucky as i was. but, you know, i think you said it just right, the first responders that ran toward the chaos and the carnage, nobody knew what there were-9i; yelling at crowds of people to clear the area sortçó ofçóçó intermittently because nobodyçó knew whatñ1 &guóçóñiñr orchestrated orçóçó] from investigations and this investigative report that was released? >> i think we learned the f.b.i. has a lot of work to do in terms of better coordinating their efforts with local and state authorities. >> charlie: yeah. they seem unable to do that. i don't know whether it's just within an institutional difficulty that they can't get over, but they have a real problem communicating with local and state officials. they had it here, they've had it in past chapters. >> charlie: they had it at 9/11. >> yes. >> charlie: i didn't blame

them or the -- >> no, we don't blame the f.b.i. for the tsarnaev brothers not being apprehended earlier. >> charlie: if you took a poll in boston as to what happened to tsarnaev, what would it be? >> i think if you probably enough people with a series of questions about the upcoming trial, i think you might be surprised in that people -- i don't care what happens, put him in jail forever, whatever, but i have to get on about my life. i'm not going to obsess about the trial. i'm not paying much attention to it. there are more important thingsi toñi do.ñi the hem for those wounded andñi maimed, they're going to be saying gpwçó up everyday,çó goçóçó to work at on with your life and whateverç. >>ñr charlie: has boston become more ofñi what it was because o1

about you that you want to cherish and you want to make stronger? because it served you so well. >> well, one of the more interesting elements, i think, about the marathon, it's been referenced several times but it hasn't really been focused on, i don't think, enough. and joel epet mizes it when he's talking about running last year. he's going back to run this year. the boston marathon has always been truly unique. as holiday, patriots' day, when it's run and, therefore, it's a family day. you bring your children, eight years of age, as martin richard was eight years of age when his family brought him to the finish line.çót1 year. i cançó rememberçó when it wasçw

attention, but now it's a huge, huge thing. but once the first 75 or 100 runners cross the line, the elite runners, with sneaker contracts and making a lot of runners, the rest of the marathon is you, charlie and joel, it's nurses and school teachers and cops and ordinary people running for various causes. that's the way it's always been. that's the way, hopefully, it always will be. and i think the focus on the fact that ordinary people fuel the mar thorntion run the marathon -- fuel the marathon and run the marathon, lines thick with people along all 26 miles, cheering joel through wellesley, down the hills last boston college, then you're exhausted and the crowd just draws you in coming down commonwealth avenue and pulling you forward wheñr you think you can'tçó take año)herñi step,ñi y pulled joel forward and everybody else, that's what the marathon is, it's people. >> charlie: "boston strong."ssi0

"boston rúrong" is more than a slogan. it symbolizes the survivors. we remember not only the evil act that claimed innocent lives, but also the tremendous determination of those who, despite suffering broken bones, amputated limbs or major disfigments, now lead productive lives. that is the story. >> yeah, it is the story. the people of the story. the people who were there, the people -- there were -- i don't know how many total runners last year, maybe 32,000, but there were 32,000 stories. we're in the storytelling business, charlie. >> charlie: yeah. and there were so many stories. jeff bauman who lost both legs, he and his fianceé are expecting their first child in july. that's a wonderful story. that's a story of hope, a story of the future. martin richards, 8 years of age,

who with his father, mother, and his sister jane go to the marathon to watch the finish because it's family day. marathon is family day in boston. you take the kids to watch the run, an exciting element. he loses his life there, and yet his life is not lost. he's still with us, just the symbol of martin richards, the posters of this child and the way people have rallied around the richards family and the richards family carrying themselves with such dignity after such a devastating loss, it gives people strength and hope. i can recall when my children were young, when they were eight years of age taking them to the marathon and for many years after that>

>> thank you. >> charlie: good run. thank you. >> charlie: looking forward to it. thank you, mike. >> thank you. >> charlie: there were other stories of boston today. people in boston and around the country remembered what happened. there were also stories about the people who survived and were able to rebuild their lives. here are some of those stories. >> we will always remember our guardian angels -- lingzi, sean, krystle and martin. whether we raise them as our children, knew them for years, met them once or only know them in spirit, we will carry them in our hearts. >> our community, our city, our first responders, our surgeons, our physical and mental therapists would not and will not let us fail and their unwavering devotion to strength is why we stand here "boston

strong" stood. >> charlie: digital journalism is getting speed on and possibly surpassing traditional reporting, established news organizations have lost journalism's biggest names. nate silver is the founder of 538.com and editor andñr chief. he tqsñiñxiçó qpeviously atçó +" kara swisher and walt mossberg were previously atç "wall street journal,"çó theyçóç startedçóñ?øwí3t/)y[:xv:w;zçsp of the "new york times" joined the marshal project dedicated to covering the u.s. criminal justice system. mr. keller, why did you do this? you had a quote which i like very much in which you basically said that people have options, they should lean towards the one that scares them the most. >> i remember having approached that doctrine to lots of young reporters as i was thinking

through whether to take this challenge. you like to think that you have another act or two in your life. i've had all the good jobs at the "new york times," not always the best of times butñi often at thoi bestñiñr ofñ subject matter appealedçó to meó lot. >> charlie: criminal justice. riminal justice. i mean, we haveçóçó thisñi dysfunctional,/o!ñi wasteful,ñ black men from mostly disadvantaged communities, brutalizes them for some number of years and drops them, with no skills, back into those same communities. how is that good for public safety? it's a subject that i love. it's a challenge because it's one of those subjects that editors tell you our demographic doesn't really want to read about that, and, in the back of my mind, i guess it's kind of cool to be in on what may be the

future of journalism. i think the future of journalism is many futures, but i think there's a place for nonprofit journalism, by which i mean nonprofit on you were as opposed to a lot of news organizations. >> charlie: are we redefining journalism here? >> we are and we aren't. i think it's important to stress kara and i -- not only kara and i, but i'm sure everybody at this table and beyond, there are some, also, who are on the web moving at the speed of the web, being sassier than you could be in the "wall street journal" or the "new york times" on a day-to-day basis, but always doing your stories based on high standards similar to the "times" or "the journal." but all our reporters are terrific and they all know there are stories that will hold till we get the right sourcing and all that.

having said that, you layer on top of that a nimbleness and anq think it's just much more liberatingçó than what you get - >> charlie: liberating is the word. >> yes. youçóñiçaf' standards. we are moving journalism to the next phase by bringing along the old standards that are good and leaving behind the ones that aren't and embracing a new way of delivery. it's like redelivering journalism in a way that's more interesting toñi readers in differentçóñ nateñi igiñiñiñiñi çóç he's doing now is there's all different needs the consumers have. it's not that they don't love content and good content, they just want it in different ways, so we want to appeal to that. >> charlie: are you different than the three of them are doing? >> i think these things

sometimes get lumped together. they have different business models and strengths and$- is day journalism. so it means cisco analysis, data-literate reporting. we hope it's a part of the future for journalism. we don't think there's one future for journalism. one reason is i think the people we've hired from the "wall street journal" and the guardian and the "new york times," they'll replace people that left and say this is a validçó and important thing journalists are doing. you know, sometimes, when we start, you know, i think we're a competitive group of people and soñiçó"f basically we think the country could stand to have more data literacy. a lot of what does, including journalism, and we're trying to push that ball further. >> charlie: i assume your

success means the country does certainly want more data. >> i was at a dinner with the c.e.o. of a big american company, american industrial company and he said, you know, i see my business now as a data business first and foremost. >> charlie: meaning i have to analyze data and know the information to understand the competitive world -- >> and, you know, i think we're just at the very crest of this hill. it's going to take a long time to get there. it has to do with the educational system. it has to do with perhaps immigration and things like that. so we have lots of data and not a heck of a lot of idea what to do with all of it, so that's the very big problem we hope we can provide a tiny bit of -- >> he interprets it. he doesn't just give us data. that's too confusing. nate has a point of view. it's not an opinion, per se, but an attitude towards the data that explains it. >> charlie: a difference between a point of view and opinion?

>> well, i think this is a complicated question. i mean, i think noñi one,áujçóç, vantage point, are you trying to portray the world as fully and fairly as you see it? that's not easy. we say instead of trying to present a filtered version of it on top of the filter we can't avoid. we realize we haven't divorced ourself from the challenge any journalism organization faces. >> charlie: you went from the "new york times" to espn and abc and, you know -- i mean, you went from one big one to another big one because you thought you could do more there or they appreciated you more there or because you had more freedom there or because -- because you were driving during the political vaccines 20% of the traffic. >> for a few days.

not over the long term.ñr basically, y t)'uñiçó toñiñrñi d something. ates really excitingçó thing -- it's a really exciting thing to do to hire and work with people and try to put theseçó things tt all soundçó greatóçóñi in theo) the espn family was a better place to do that because they take more of an attitude toward we're making an investment and hope we get returns on the investment tangible and intangible. i love the journalists at the "new york times." >> charlie: yeah. but i think that journalism, thankfully, is their strength and maybe i'm trying to look for something that has synergy -- i hate that term -- but a business we can grow and build. >> charlie: plus you love sports. >> yes. >> charlie: when you left -- you have to have a partner in this. as i remember, you had a hedge fund guy. he had been a journalist -- he

was at the "wall street journal" -- >> yes, before the "new york daily news" and started a couple of hedge funds. >> charlie: is he doing this out of a passion to do something about the criminal justice system more than anything else. >> yes. >> charlie: and this is the way he believes he can do it? >> like a lot of us in this business, he has a bit of grownup add. most of us just change beats every three or four years. he's changed entire careers, but he has a track record of finishing what heñr starts. though he's putting up some of theñi money. we're raising the rest from individuals and foundations.ñiçó but,çó yes, hwóçóçóñoói]+-q was michelle alexander's book "the new jim crowe" which talks about the racialization of the criminal justice system in america. another was devlin mcgrove, a great book about a case of

justice in the '30s in florida where marshall was a heroic lawyer. >> and more advocacy journalism. it's a different take on what they're doing. but again, we talked to him briefly. >> charlie: to -- to understand what we're doing. i've known him since heñi startó ebay. >> charlie: coveredñrñi him.ñro very well. >> charlie: doesçó comcas have an interest in your company?çóçw

althovou should not discount the influence that these kinds of startups and these specific people are having on the mainstream. you walk through the "new york times" now and you had walked through the "new york times" ten years ago, you would see an entirely different place. it is much more a laboratory, much more experimental, much more interdisciplinary, much more web focused. nate contributed to that. i was the editor when he was hired and it was, i think, in some ways, a mild shock to the system. >> a major shock. but i have to say, you can identify his influence on that place and a willingness -- and we had data journalists before. >> charlie: they realized the impact he was having and, therefore, they said we need to hear the same music. >> yeah, exactly. i mean, "the times" has

gotten a lot of things right. it has probably the best team of information architects. they were terrific to work with. >> charlie: the town's web site or what are we talking? >> the "times" web site. they realized early enough that the way content is presented on the web, it can't just be like a version of the print paper. you have a potential to do a lot more. i miss working with those guys. we have great people we're working with as well. but i didn't have a huge philosophical difference with the "new york times." i enjoyed my time there. it was just a matter that i think these news organizations aren't in the mindset to invest in a product that has an independent -- >> charlie: why? what's interesting is everyone here used the term "failed." we've all said it. we want to build and make. there's a whole movement of makers that you make things and

i think all of us are interested in making things on our own. >> charlie: what kind of things do you want to make? >> you can think of additional things we want to do on the web. >> we don't want to wait for someone to tell us what to build. >> it's about can we do this or whatever. if we fail, you know, we fail. we don't think we're going to fail but if we do, we do. i think everybody here has that risk. what you want is the chance to use kara's term which is the exact right term, to build, to grow, to invest, and you need a certain kind of partner, investor. nbc understands this, terry simmel who used to run yahoo and other investors understands it

and we think we have been give an chance to build and grow. there were a lot of competing claims in a big media company, and now we don't have to compete with that. >> charlie: so, in terms of the consumer, what is it you think they are so desirous of? what is it that's driving from the demand side what all of you are doing? >> i think there are consumers that want to be treated as being intelligent. you know, what we talk about at 538 is we want to show you our work. one skill of journalism is we share a lot of data and code instead of telling you here's how the world is. weapon say this is the problem and we want to show you the way and get feedback from you. transparency is a new objective that we think makes a lot of sense. but we hold the reader in esteem. partly because i'm not sure we're going to appeal to every

single random person on the street, but if you capture a certain part of the audience and serve them welsh and we live in an interconnected world with 7 billion people, you know, you can be very successful as a journalist and enterprise and financially as well if you understand the audience you're trying to serve and treat them with respect. >> charlie: i hear a couple of words that are sort of within the context of the conversation we're having whether being used here or not. one is "drilling down" and the other is "niche journalism." >> it's knowing your audience and serving them well. it's not niche to serve them, like a restaurant that serves french food. >> charlie: you're serving an audience interested in criminal justice. >> or tech -- >> charlie: or not. that's correct, and we hope to enlarge the audience that's paying attention to criminal justice, but criminal justice is very much about race, class, mental illness, drugs, youth,

immigration. >> if you're interested in politics, citizenship and the good of the country, you care about criminal justice. maybe not every minute of every day but if you guys do a great story or analysis, i would be interested in reading it, even though it has nothing to do with my professional work. in our case, there's lots of tech news -- and i'm using air quotes out there. seriously, our bet is on quality and it was when we were doing the predecessor sites and conferences, and we think there's an audience that wants people who step back, who think hard, who don't necessarily write every piece of commodity news. >> charlie: what's different for what you do for technology that politico does for politics? >> it's similar. one thing we are is more involved with our audience, i would say. we think of these things, it's part of a whole ecosystem of how we're talking to our audience.

i was at "the washington post" this week and they were, like, your reporters are so good at social media. i was, like, what's that supposed to mean? of course they are. they're having a dialogue with readers and all kinds of things. i didn't know what to say. but they thought it was a weird, exotic technique we had. but it wasn't. we're thinking of a -- we're in a much more interactive way, using these tools to attract audiences and reflect back but never leave reporting out. we don't leave reporting out. >> charlie: go ahead. nate made a really important point which is everybody at this table agrees with is that we are a substantial portion of the media including new media is banking on the idea that people want to be entertained, they want to be amused, they want to distracted or maybe they want to be outraged. not that they want to be serious, contemplative,

educated, and we're betting that's wrong or betting there is at least a substantial portion of that audience that is a market for serious journalism. tech journalism or -- >> bill, i agree with you, but i would say -- and i know kara and i talked about it quite a lot and so has our staff -- we want quality, we want seriousness, we want high standards. it doesn't mean we won't occasionally be funny. there are different ways of engaging readers and one of then is we write reviews of gadgets, of products, and it's one of the many things we do. those reviews are very personal and kind of often have funny anecdotes in them and stuff like that. by the the time you geto the end, if you do, hopefully, you will have learned what you need to know about this thing, but you also may chuckle, and that's important, too. >> i totally agree, but i think the point is we're not talking

down to people. >> no, no, never. what we're doing is reaching the tools they want to be reached on. we're reaching them on mobile and twitter and -- >> charlie: reporters who come into this like all of you, are they are different breed? >> yes, i think they're experienced -- >> charlie: beyond the social media uses. >> they're entrepreneurial. they're report-a-preneurs. they're interested in trying new things and using the solid skills they have in the first place, so they're open minded. >> charlie:. when kara and i went to journalism school, which was different periods, but they didn't teach that anything to do with journalism had anything to do with being entrepreneurial. yet you can multiply the power of your journalism if you have

control and good partnerships with smart people and you can move it ahead and get out of a big, giant bureaucracy. there are wonderful things about saying, i'm going to depend every day on the report of the "new york times," or maybe if you have a different political orientation i'm going to depend on the report of the "wall street journal," because those two institutions have a lot of fine reporters doing real journalism. but there's another world out there where people are pushing the boundaries all the time which is what we're supposed to do. >> nate is the biggest entrepreneurial person there is. >> it's a generational thing, too, where people in my age came to age in bill clinton's area and after ronald reagan so it was a very robust time in the economy and a time where people idealizes the entrepreneurs, the bill gates and steve jobs of the world.

>> walt and i have this "yes and" thing. we have a team that says "yes and" not "yes but." you have an idea and did it which is very serious than someone who had an idea and didn't. there's a subtle difference between a person who takes an idea and makes something of it rather than someone who sits on it. >> charlie: they're called entrepreneurs. >> yes. it's arrogant to say there's this need in the market for this thing that no one else is doing it and i'm the person to do that. because i would want a product like that and every step of the way, we have been able to engage with our readers. one more point about respecting your readers, too, is that we do not assume that we're the only thing they're reading every day, or even if they're reading us every day, right? we hope that when they read our stories that they come out knowing a little more about something than before and if

they come back time after time. it's terrific if they have a wide news diet. >> and i won't presume for bill because i don't know but i know this is true for kara and i and our staff, but because we were in conferences one year, we got to do steve jobs and bill gates together and one of the many things they said in that interview was that, yeah, they want their stuff to sell and they wanted to change the world and all the things i think they really did, they didn't mind being rich either. i know you know bill quite well. but they said, we also like to build the stuff we like to use ourselves, and when you are liberated from a bigger organization that has a lot of concerns about a lot of different things, it's one of the things you can do. you might fail at it. you might find out nobody else wants it, but you might find out there are enough people that want it that it works. >> charlie: how will you define success? >> i have practice answers on

that (laughter) >> charlie: what is your answer? >> when you go to foundations and ask them for money, they want to know how you define success. journalists tend to cringe from that question because, you know, a good story is a thing in and of itself and of value, and most journalism tends to have its impact incrementally and over the long haul. very rare that a story has an immediate impact. but i will be happy if there is an appreciable elevation of the subjects of criminal justice in the next political campaigns. i would love it if some of our stories resulted in specific shifts in the wind and, you know, then there are the kind of standard metrics which are metrics. obviously, it will be a failure if we don't get a lot of people to read it, if we don't reach a large audience and engage them.

>> but you impact. you don't necessarily need a giant mass audience. >> charlie: so where is it all going, you know? (laughter) what are the odds -- (talking at the same time) >> charlie: no, is this your fate when you go to every event around? >> what people don't get is that we actually tell our journalists and they're trained to be very skeptical in some ways of data, right? oftentimes that data hasn't been -- you know, the data is sort of unclean which oftentimes a big trend is just an outlier, so it's challenging to look at these things, including in journalism. >> he wants to know where it's

all going. >> charlie: yeah. to some extent, people think it the great era of the american newspaper say in the 1970s, in some ways that's the historical anomaly, where journalism has always been a rough and tumble, rapiy changing, high turnover type of business. so this is the new normal. >> it was a blue collar business till i don't know what the year would be, but i would say the late '60s. loads of reporters who never went to college. >> if you could watch old game shows, they would have different teams of professions. the reporters looked like they could be plumbers. so the whole esteem of the profession has changed. >> charlie: it wasn't called a "profession" for a long time. >> i think it's never been more exciting to be in the contents phase. walt and i are not spring chickens but this has been the most exciting part of our career. we were energized and inner innd

in a way. >> we have people advising us. a million ways to get it to people now. what a great opportunity. why would you be upset about that just because you can't do a physical newspaper. >> charlie: i'll close with this notion, seems to me empowerment is what happened. >> empowered journalists and readers. >> and i've probably sat at this table a time or two and lamented the decline of number of papers that have foreign correspondence. but i'm a foreign reporting junky and i log on to the news sites in south africa, russia, the bbc and i can get et all. >> charlie: thank you, thank you, thank you. >> thanks. >> charlie: biz stone is here, co-founded twitter in 2006. the idea was simple, provide a

way for people to share ideas and information in real time instantly. today, an estimated 1 billion tweets is sent every 48 hours. the social network changed the way people around the world communicate. stone's new book is called things a little bird told me, confessions of a creative mind. tells the story of his unconventional path to success and offers insights and advice he's collected along the way. i am pleased to have biz stone back at this table. the first interview we did was back in -- it was not soon after twitter was put together. >> yeah, it was early, in the early days, buzz we met a few times. >> charlie: yeah. by the way, thanks again for having me on. >> charlie: pleasure to have you here. why did you write this? >> i got invited ten years ago to teach a class at oxford university, and they kept

inviting me back. >> charlie: what was the class you taught? >> well, they called it a master class. then they said, whatever you want. , so you know, just like to say write what you know, i thought, well, i'll teach what i know. so it was for the business students at the business school in oxford. >> charlie: right. it was just stories from my own life that i realized were actually lessons that i had then transposed into my business career. >> charlie: tell me about jelly and medium. >> medium is a publishing platform that evan williams and i started working on together after twitter. the idea -- i don' you know, tha of it's a place for people to tell their stories, the best place for people to tell their stories. jelly is an idea i had with my co-founder ben finkel, a friend

of mine. he's one of the few guys like evan williams and jack dorsey who i go on weekly walk and talks with. we might joke around, we might talk serious, we might have grand ideas. so jelly was one of those things. ben and a i realized that, in the past 15 years, no one has completely reimagined the way that we get answers to our queries, our questions. i mean, it's a completely different landscape than 15 years ago. we're all mobile. we're all social. it's not what it was. so we designed a better way to ask a question, and that's what jelly is, and i can get into the specifics of how it works. >> charlie: explain it to me. well, the idea is -- you know, first of all, you've heard of the six degrees of separation. >> charlie: yes, i have.

they say it's now four because of social networks and mobile phones, it's just unbelievable. what gel is does is it -- jelly does is it uses photos, locations, maps and most importantly people from all your social networks measured together in one big network. it goes out not just one degree but two degrees of separation and to real people, your queries are going to real people. and those people, they either know the answer or they can forward it to someone in their social network. >> charlie: what happened to you and evan and jack dorsey? this story has been told often, but what was the conflict among you guys? >> you know, it wasn't a conflict for me. if anything, i'm in the middle. >> charlie: that's right, absolutely. they did say that. >> i meet weekly with both these guys. i consider them to be not just dear friends -- you know, i recently had a birthday party

and i only invited people who i said have had a major impact on my life, and both jack and evan came to that party. >> charlie: did they hang out together? >> everyone was sort of forced to hang out together and i had it in a small venue. you know, i just -- i often ask myself the same question. in the book, i write about how -- it took me a long time -- it kind of dawned on me, i said, why are people behaving this way? i was sitting in a board meeting wondering why are people behaving this odd way? i'm still thinking of us as a rag tag team of kids trying to figure it out. then it suddenly dawned on me that billions of dollars are at stake here and, you know, that's a big deal. >> charlie: what were the relative strengths of you, evan, jack? >> well, see, that's interesting, too, because my

relationship to evan and jack are similar in that i am kind of in the clouds. you know, i'm always throwing things out there and, you know, talking crazy talk and -- if i'm talking to evan or i'm talking to jack, they're two of the few people in the world who if i say -- let's assume there is no such thing as gravity, they'll say, go on. and they'll allow me to be me. somewhere in there, they'll find a hook and they'll say, actually, you know what? so that was always the strength that i found between myself and evan first, then i met jack later, teamed up with jack to do twitter, but teamed up with evan to do blogger. that's why i made a good pair with these guys because i'm in the clouds, they're grounded, and when we brainstorm, we usually settle in the middle. >> charlie: so what's the

conflict between evab and jack? >> these guys are very similar. from my perspective, these are both -- >> charlie: sort of pure entrepreneurs? >> pure entrepreneurs but separate from entrepreneurs. they're grounded men who, you know, speak when spoken to, think through their answers before they give them, you know, unlike me. you know, i used to tease evan because we used to go on tv for twitter and someone would say, like, evan, tell us, is twitter going to make money? and he would go -- and i would say, evan, here's what you do. is twitter going to make -- yes! and then you figure out the answer. but, you know, because he would think through. and that's what these guys are like. they're very thoughtful, they're very patient and, you know, they look -- they've taught me a lot. i've learned from them to take the long view of things and how

important that is. >> charlie: whose idea was twitter? >> that's a muddle. that's a muddle of a question. i always like to say that it was jack's idea because -- well, first of all, it was evan's idea that everyone just say, you know what? odio is not doing so great, why doesn't everyone just pair up, find a teammate and work on something you like? and i had become so friendly with jack, at that point, it was like, you know, back in elementary school gym class. find a partner, you know. we assumed we would work together. so i said, jack, let's just do something fast and easy. let's do -- i had these ideas like picture blogging. just photos, that's it. just post a photo. or let's do -- >> charlie: instagram. right, exactly. and i threw out a few quick

things and he said, yeah, i have something like that. he said, i want to do just updates, just status updates. then, as i remembered, we talked over to his computer and he showed me aol instant messenger, which at the time, 2005, 2006, we were still using. aside from the fact that you could chat with each other, what you could do is send a little status update there. it was meant to be why you weren't online. you know, the presets were, you know, away or, you know, out, or away from my desk, or whatever. but you could also write whatever you wanted in there. he pointed out, look how some people are writing, having a sucky day or listening to the white stripes. he said, isn't it interesting that i can just glance at this and have an idea of what my old group of friends are up to?

i said, that is interesting. he said, do you think this could be a thing? and jack knew i had started one of the early social blogging platforms in 1999 and 2000 which everyone has forgotten about now, but he knew i had that history of having an empathetic way of approaching computer science. so when he proposed that idea, i said, i love the simplicity of it, let's go for it. i'll design it. i'll design what looks like, how everything works. you know, i made up the follow button and all these other things that now have become like sort of standard things, and you figure out how to hook text messaging up to the web, because that was the idea. >> charlie: how long before -- and we wouldn't have been able to do it without evan. evan bank rolled all of it. >> charlie: so what was his skill beyond money? >> well, he's a great product guy. you know, beyond money, just

like what do you think -- you know -- well, first of all, one of the first things jack said, we want to do simple status updates but we'll add audio to it because we're trying to odo, this podcasting company. no way, the whole point is just to try something new. >> charlie: what is the biggest opportunity for twitter today? >> i think the opportunity for twitter today is growth. you know, i mean, if you take the long term, if you're thinking of twitter as a timeless company of enduring value and you think in terms of decades, like someone like jeff basos does, you've got to look at twitter as having just gotten started. it just became a public company. it's a pup, right? and it's -- now, it's got the world in front of it, you know. >> charlie: and the biggest threat to it?

>> the biggest threat to twitter seems to always have been itself. i mean, at least when i was there. the biggest threat -- one of our board members, peter fenton, likes to say in a class we co-teach in stanford is twitter shot itself in every major organ and still managed to succeed (laughter) i subscribe to that belief that the biggest threat to twitter is always going to be twitter itself because, you know, the company's on to something, people -- it's proven it's of value to the world, and now it's just a matter of -- >> charlie: especially to the mobile world. >> it's built for mobile. mobile is in it's dna. we made it for mobile. so it's just a matter of trucking along. >> charlie: you still do the oxford lecture? >> i still do it. i've expanded that to not just the said school of business but

exeter at oxford and the center for corporate reputation at o oxford as well. and berkeley and stanford and some other places. >> charlie: good to see you, business. >> pleasure. wonderful to talk to you. >> charlie: "things a little bird told me, confessions of a creative mind" by biz stone. thank you for joining us. see you next time. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

larriva: it's like holy mother of comfort food.ion. woman: throw it down. it's noodle crack. patel: you have to be ready for the heart attack on a platter. crowell: okay, i'm the bacon guy. man: oh, i just did a jig every time i dipped into it. man #2: it just completely blew my mind. woman: it felt like i had a mouthful of raw vegetables and dry dough. sbrocco: oh, please. i want the dessert first! [ laughs ] i told him he had to wait.