Things a Little Bird Told Me: Confessions of the Creative Mind
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. --Vanessa Bush