tavis: good evening. i'm tavis smiley. first up, a conversation with twitter cofounder, biz stone. this is his first interview, since the site crashed. the users continue to grow and wsaw recent uprising in iran. and gloria ruben stars on the

legal drama "raising the bar." we're glad you joined us, biz stone and actress gloria ruben, coming up right now.

tavis: this is the cofounder of twitter which has become a cultural and social phenomena around the world, as if you didn't know. and biz was named to the list of the 100 most flual people in the world. last week when twitter crashed, following a hacker's attack, it became one of the biggest stories on the planet in a matter of hours. biz stone is here. glad to have you here. how you doing? >> excellent. >> you survived the crash. >> we did. >> what have you learned on this side of the crash? >> this is what is called a denial of service attack. it is pretty common on the the internet. it is not going away anytime soon. what we learned, you got to tune your systems to handle this scale of assault. we spent 200 catching up with the popularity of twitter, getting there technically so

we're stable and along comes this massive attack -- we learned a lot from it. we worked behind the scenes from folks from google and other companies to figure out how to stop the attacks and better deal with them in the future. tavis: does that mean -- you said how to better stop the attacks. >> better deal with them. you don't really stop them. tavis: that's what i go asking. you can't stop it. >> no, it is -- beeve it or not, there's not so great people out there on the internet. this kind of attack is basically, i don't know if you mow exactly what this is -- it is millions of sort of zombie computers that have all been infected with a piece of software that is just waiting dormant from a command for somebody. they wait until someone utilizes them. and then they say, everyone go, this website, millions of illegitimate requests, which then block out all the

legitimate requests from anyone accessing the site. that's how they deny service to legitimate users. tavis: i assume to be hacked means you have gotten to a level where you're significant enough and big enough and the story becomes big enough for the hacker to successfully try to hack you. it is a back ended compliment. mitch: you're not a target until you become popular. tavis: much better said. you say it easier than i did. what is the nickname biz come from? >> unfortunately it comes from me not saying my full name when i was a kid. my full name is christopher isaac stone. i couldn't say christopher, i said biz bur. it kind of sounds the same. it stuck and i tried to go by isaac most of my life and do i in some places.

but biz, other people find out people call me biz they want to call me biz. tavis: it is reported so much the success you've had and some places been reported. the back story was. tell me what you were doing. tell me your back story prior to twitter. >> before, i was working at google and before that another start-up. i don't know how far back you want to go. i was at a startup that was a rival startup to my current cofounders startup which is called blogger. we knew of each other through the internet. i left mine. he sent me a note and said why don't you join us. that's when we actually met. originally sort of an arrival way. and then we became colleagues at google and we looked working together so much, that we both left google and we started working on another startup that was a podcasting sartup that had to do with audio on the internet. we weren'ts as interested in

thats as we should have been. that led to experimentation that led to twitter. tavis: how do you conex-if yulize something that grows -- this phenomenally big in such a short period of time? >> it is an interesting question. it has grown faster than anything we worked on before. it has grown at a phenomenal rate. it is a great challenge. it is now a very interesting and intriguing technical challenge for our engineers too. the way you deal with it, you focus on the team. and the core. we actually think it -- when we think of twitter internally, we think of three things.ñ twitter the technology and the product and the company. and the culture. and we -- we give equal attention to those things. what we really want to build is a company, and what we really want to focus on, nots as necessarily the triumph of technology but the triumph of humanity. what people will do with a simple technology. that's what we want to happen.

our job becomes keep the service running to the best of our ability. tavis: you said something a moment ago. it got my attention. it is at the heart for me of what is best about twitter. that is, used by humanity. the humanitarian purposes that twitter has been used for. there's all kind of examples. we could spend hours talking about the stories in the news and twitter has been successfully employed. the flip side of that question, though, is did you guys ever imagine all the sillyness -- i laughed at what people want to know or care what i'm cog every minute of the day. other celebrities provide more information than i provide. did you ever think that would be one of the usages of it? >> we definitely. the very first experience -- i had with twitter. we created the prototype in about two weeks and my cofounder jack dorsey and i, we created it in two weeks just to see who

would like this. we asked our colleagues try it over the weekend. i was trying it out. it was the first weekend. my wife and i just bought our first house and i had to rip up the carpet from the previous owners and it was a heat wave in berkeley at the time. it was terrible work. i was doffering things i did not want to discover. i was cursing, why did we buy this house? my phone buzzed, it was evan my other cofounder. he said i'm snipping wine after a massage in napa valley. i thought this is funny he's doing that and i'm doing this. and i laughed and that laughter product i want to work on. it made me laugh. but in my opinion, humor is more important than people give it credit for. it is a very important delivery mechanism for information. a lot of times humor is where

truth is. humor is a way for humans to convey things they wouldn't otherwise be comfortable doing. the sillyness was actually to me a signal this was a great thing to work on. after this, we started realizing during earthquakes and wildfires, it was a useful tool to disseminate information through a group of people. tavis: how big of the celebrity embrace of it has been to the fostering of it. >> the celebrity embrace and then you can put these international event that is have occurred -- muss the celebrity -- sort of embracement of it. and i think it helped me grow. the celebritys have large volumes of people already. you have someone like lance armstrong and martha stewart using the service. they're interested -- there are people interested in what they're doing. naturally they attract people that want to follow them on twitter. the flip sid is they have a powerful tool. someone like ashton kutcher has

access to 3 million people like that. he sends a message to 3 or 4 million people. it is growing every day. for us, i think, the adoption from internationally well known people has been a good growth mechanism. but i think the flip side of it, it is valuable for the celebriti. tavis: do you know, and what does your research tell you about the age group -- i can pretty much guess the group that most embraced twitter. i think now about -- i was talking to my mom. my mom has a cell phone. people's grandparents have cell phones. it is a technology that everybody eventually over tame came to embrace. can you see seniors embracing twitter? >> absolutely. we don't know a lot of information demographically speaking because where he don't ask people too much information. anecdotally, we see a wide rain of -- range of people. i've had people tell me my whole

senior center is getting on twitter. there's over 4 billion mobile phones in use on the planet. every one is a twitter ready device. because twitter works on texting or sms. that's most inspiring to me, there's only 1.5 billion web users. those are fwit twitter ready. you put them together, you have a wide swath of people that will have access to the network. what surprises me about s.m.s., it is available in parts of the world. they can ask a question on twitter. does anyone know if i could get a better price for for this grain? then they have access to a real-time network. and someone says you could charge double. and then that person's life has been changed because they could charge double. and two, we know the price of grain. that could be interesting

information. twitter has on top of it, search functionality. everythings as it comes in in real-time is indexed at subsecond speed. you could search twitter for what anyone is saying at anytime. tavis: the next question. this keeps popping up. how do these three brilliant guys that come up with a very simple but brilliant concept ever turn this into money. everybody is using it. the numbers you laid out now, how much bigger, it can be, where is the money in this? >> first off, it is not just us three guys. there's about 50 or so people working up in a hoft in san francisco, working hard. it is all of us working together as a team. there's tremendous potential for money and revenue. what we want to do as a company is have a positive impact on the world, and not through the technology but what people will do through the technology. that's the main goal. the open exchange of information could have a positive impact.

we need to fuel that growth and with money, in order to do that we need a great sustainable business and a business model. the company was founded two years ago. what we have chosen to do is focus on value over profit. the way we define value is getting the system to be working on as many cell phones as possible in all regions of the world. that's our focus. that being said, what we want to do is start showing signs of life in terms of generating revenue. many people are asking the same question you're asking. i think they're asking it because they want to know, are you going to be around? we like the service, we want to invest in the service. there's 10,000 different applications and companies being built on top of the twitter platform. we opened up our infrastructure. they want to say, prove to us that you're going to be around a while. we want to show signs of life this year. we begin to do that by -- interacting with the -- with the many commercial account that is

have already popped up on twitter. and twitter, you can't think of it like a social network. it is not about are you a friend of mine? it is about millions rah millions of different sources of information that you choose to curate and follow. tavis: what you say about those commercial interests and showing a revenue stream this year, does tcha mean advertisement? >> no, you have companies lye like coom cast and they're using twitter. or a cookie shop? fran. i saw a sign. they said follow us on twitter and we'll tell you when the cookies come out warm. so everybody buys their cookies. people are using twitter to raise the bottom line. we think that because we're getting value out of twitter, we want to follow that value. how can we offer more value. twitter will remain free for

everyone but we play offer a additional layer of value, for the commercial accounts. whether it is through a certification, how can we make sure everyone knows this is definitely jetblue and not somebody pretending to be jetblue? a variety of features that would have a paid level to them. that's how we begin to have relationships with these commercial entities. and that's just phase one. then we build from there. we go from there as we have been doing from the product itself. tavis: you'll figure out how to make money at some point down the road. i'm betting on biz. christopher isaac stone, he can say that this many years later. nice to have you here. former e.r. star up next.

tavis: welcome gloria reuben. she's starring on "raising the bar." it airs sunday nights on t.n.t. here a scene. >> you pursued legal charges. the reason is to give you a chance to keep it quiet. >> you should have come to me. we work things out, boss to boss. i thought you knew that. >> look if i thought for a minute that the d.a.'s office had the power to compensation mr. lewis for wrongful arrest, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution. >> you underestimate me. did you ever think i had a opportunity to -- >> you're going to retaliate. >> it is a misdemeanor, 90 days, not just 15. it is constitutional. >> that's a threat, it is not a solution. how about you address my real concerns here. tavis: if i ever need a public

defender, i want gloria reuben. >> isn't that fun. that's funny, but interesting, because i don't want to bash, public defenders do a great job. but unfortunately because of the culture we live in. every so often you read a heinous story about a public defender that let their client down. that's not the role you play. >> indeed. i know it is definitely a thing that people unfortunately have to deal with because the work force of public defenders as d.a.'s but the work force of if you believe defenders, they're so overloaded with an extraordinary amount of case, particularly at this time with cities and states are tough on crime. that means everybody and anybody gets arrested. also, there have been other television programs that deal with the judicial system that -- have not necessarily portrayed the role or life of a public defender in a most kind of positive way or a way that shows them being intelligent and capable. tavis: what makes this show different?

>> that we do that. we show public defenders are not just overworked. of course, there are many of them that are extremely loyal to their tchinets, that are intelligent and work diligently to hopefully provide the best kind of legal counsel for their clients. oftentimes, pe they butt up against a system that isn't necessarily kind of conducive to being understanding about individual situations. as much as it is about locking people up. tavis: your character? >> raz. i like her. tavis: i don't believe everything i read. but i think this is true. you said you think you were perfectly cast in this role. not often a actress says that. what did you mean? >> i think it is a good fit. i like the way she's a leader. you know, i have found that oftentimes i have found that certain roles that come to me, very -- very much parallel for some reason the things in my life. i like that she's a leader and obviously being the voice for

those who do not have the voice for themselves. and representing people -- that literally can't afford to represent themselves. and i find that -- i've been very blessed of course to have been, having a lengthy career so far and hopefully that will continue. to be able to use my success, in order to help be the voice for people in different a aspects and different act victim i'm involved with. in that way, it is a great parallel thing. i think clearly she's intelligent and she looks good and she's -- those things i like. tavis: to your point earlier, you said oftentimes, i'm paraphrasing, oftentimes you find roles and characters that are oofered to you that parallel your life. is that to your thinking, your mind, is that gloria, divine intervention. is that by design? how does that happen, do you think? >> i think the first thing you said is very much in play. the divine intervention. if i look back and look at the past and how it unfolded with

with my career, and where it led not just acting but how it led me to do other things, in no way could i have even imagined -- that things would have turned out the way they have. and so -- 100%, it is divine intervention. absolutely. tavis: i was in a conversation on my public radio show just the ear day,s as i often am about hiv/aids. for a variety of reasons, but mostly because we don't have a cure and thinking about you coming on the show. i'm connecting these things, because my forgotten and we did a show here -- celebrating the close of the wrap up of e.r. i'm connected to wrap-up of e.r. and you coming on the program and been on e.r., connect these dots. stay with me. you had been on e.r. i had forgotten, it was some years ago, that way before, we were reay talking about tss as we are now, you played an hiv-positive character, on

e.r.a. >> that's right. tavis: what do you -- >> i think very much again it is diff divine intervention in a number of ways. and when she found out she was hiv-positive. this was 13 years ago, she was a letter sexual, married roffingsal african-american woman and got hiv. we were ahead of our time. e.r., in the first few years was ahead of its time in a number of different ways. but for the issue of hiv that storyline was completely ahead of its time. it is now -- it is 10, 13 years later that we find that professional heterosexual, african-american women are being infected at astounding rates and that indeed, because of reruns people -- maybe it is in their mind a little more that i play this character on television but as a society, we have dropped the ball on the issue. hence my, about five years ago, feeling a strong need and desire to pick up that ball and -- try to be out there in the world, specifically in the united states, in the african-american

and latino communities, getting the message back out there, because we forgotten about it. it is like it doesn't exist anymore. meanwhile, the man dem i think continues to -- to spread here mountain united states. and i'm very thankful for -- for the numerous reasons that barack obama is our president. right. and when it comes to this issue of hiv, you know, finally we have a leader who not only acknowledges that this is a pandemic here in the united states, but is creating and will implement a national strategy and has also put together 45 million dollar media campaign that will start now and will target the demographics and the communities that have, affected the most by hiv/aids. so, you know, it is a little -- upsetting sometimes that -- that we have kind of gone backwards in a way when it comes to stigma or lack of conversation about it or homophobia or incarceration or profert or these other

element that is play into the pandemic and the black and latino communities in the united states. it is upsetting we haven't moved forward buts as is often the word we have used a a lot lately and in the last year, there's hope. clearly it starts from leadership. tavis: it is the perfect example of how hollywood can lead the discussion. the power it has to use it appropriately, to get out ahead of the story to make people wrestle with it. we talk about hiv/aids. i watched you over the years, work not just on the screen but in the community and in a variety of ways. and what is that -- at the center of, clearly your love of humanity given all of the causes beyond hiv/aids that you attach your name to. >> the name card i have attached my name card to and working diligently in is the issue of climate change. i am currently honored to be vice chair of the board of trustees for water keeper

alliance. we're a global organization that bobby kennedy jr. is a cofounder. our mission is to protect and preserve the waterways of the world. we bring polluters to justice. we hold up environmental law. as everybody on both coasts in this country and across america and around the world, we're seeing the ramification thais climate change is having on our communities and our waterways and our health. and i am on a mission to -- to raise awareness on this issue, because we don't have any time left to just kind of, belax about it. particularly when it comes to this climate bill that is -- hopefully pending to be passed in the senate. but with the issue of water, the issue of clean water, the u.n. estimates by the year 2050, 40% of the population on the planet will face life threatening clean water shortages. then we need to do something now. we have to stop the industries that are polluting our waterways.

coal is a huge industry. and we talk about polluting the environment and the air and waterways. we have to create more of this actism on the issue, which is what -- tavis: obviously, she's more than just a pretty face. having said that, if you talk about climate change, send explorra reuben. and the show is called "raising the bar." it is in its second season. nice to see you and have you on the program. catch me on the weekends. you can catch our webcasts. on pbs.org. thanks for watching and as always keep the faith. >> for more inform makes o osca

winner behind "an inconvenient truth." >> there's so many things that wal-mart is helping people do. we're helping communities. the best is yet to come. >> nationwide insurance proudly supporters tast smiley. >> tavis and nationwide insurance. working to improve the literacy and the economic empowerment that comes with it. >> nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television]