Biz Stone: Twitter must ‘make bold choices to survive with the times’

SAUSALITO, Calif. — During a chat today at VentureBeat’s Mobile Summit, Twitter and Jelly cofounder Christopher Isaac “Biz” Stone said Twitter is “going to have to make bold choices to survive with the times.”

In response to Twitter’s stock price being down in 2014 since reaching all-time highs in December after its November IPO, Stone shared that he doesn’t want Twitter “to play it safe and cater to Wall Street’s whims.” Speaking casually, Stone said stocks “will go up and down,” but he believes “Twitter is a timeless company.”

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To his point, Twitter shares saw a nice bump today, likely in response to today’s acquisition news. Still, Twitter’s business model remains a tough nut to crack.

Stone’s comments during the talk were similar to Apple chief Tim Cook’s on his company’s low stock price. Back in September, Cook said, “I don’t feel euphoric on the up, and I don’t slit my wrists when it goes down. I have ridden the roller coaster too many times for that.”

As for Stone’s Jelly, the entrepreneur didn’t share even an ounce of detail regarding the young app’s usage statistics. According to App Annie, Jelly has not seen strong results among top apps in the U.S. since its launch day highs.

Regarding Jelly’s future business model, Stone made clear that this problem isn’t top of mind, yet.

“We have all kinds of ideas for a business model whenever there’s expressed intent. But we have to prove that this is a service that can be valuable to a whole bunch of people.”