It took Fortune 3,715 words to prompt a response from one of Twitter's founders.
In a piece titled "Trouble@Twitter," Senior Writer Jessi Hempel criticized the San Francisco-based microblogging site for its lack of creativity and its high turnover rate at the top.
The cover story -- complete with a wounded Twitter bird -- questions the direction of the startup and its long term viability if it did not get its leadership house in order.
Friday Twitter co-founder Biz Stone fired back on his blog in a polite, articulate but firm manner.
We founded Twitter, Inc. in March of 2007 and while we have long said it’s about the users, not the service, we have nevertheless enjoyed favorable media coverage. What took so long for somebody to write the article that says we are falling apart? The normal press cycle is to put a company on a pedestal and then knock it down. It’s much more interesting that way. Twitter has had so many ups and downs you’d think we would have had more negative press. To me, it’s like watching the movie Rocky–he’s up, he’s down, he’s out, he wins!
Stone goes on in his post to point out how other hot startups, such as Facebook and Google, received favorable reviews and positive press before being knocked down and heavily criticized by the media.
The young tech mogul goes on to cite positive coverage Fortune has given Twitter over the years. And except for a few stories in the press about the company's lack of revenue model, Stone is correct in saying the Fortune piece is the first major media hit on his company.
But the story doesn't seem to bother Stone at all. Instead he jokes that his communication department at Twitter finally has a job to do.
For a long time, we refused to hire a communications group and now that we have one, I’m having fun teasing them about this Fortune article but the truth is, we’re long overdue to be knocked down by the press.
