Twitter and Pinterest Founders Join Forces on a New App Designed to Fix the ‘Terrible Devastation’ of Social Media
These founders helped build the very systems they are now trying to reform.
Key Takeaways
- Twitter, now X, co-founder Biz Stone and Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp have already helped create mainstream social networks.
- Now the pair are teaming up to create a new app called Tangle, which quietly launched in November on an invite-only basis.
- The app asks users a single question each day and encourages them to share the answer with friends.
Twitter, now X, co-founder Biz Stone and Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp are teaming up on a new social media app called Tangle, in an attempt to counter what they describe as the “terrible devastation” inflicted by mainstream social media on users’ minds and relationships.
Stone and Sharp’s startup overseeing Tangle, West Co, has quietly raised $29 million in funding since the pair founded it in 2023, according to a regulatory filing recently obtained by The Financial Times. Tangle, which launched in November, is West Co’s first app and is pitched as a social network “designed for intentional living.”
Sharp serves as CEO of West Co. He said in a recent September interview on the podcast Designer Fund that the startup grew from the question of what might “help address some of the terrible devastation of the human mind and heart that we’ve wrought the last 15 years.” Sharp is positioning Tangle as a values-driven alternative to traditional social media networks.
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Tangle’s first version is intentionally introspective rather than viral. The invite-only app asks users a single core question each day: “What’s your intention for today?” Then, it encourages them to share the answer with a small circle of friends.
Instead of social media feeds designed for endless scrolling, Tangle focuses on helping people “capture the reality of their days,” the company stated in a recent job posting. The job advertisement further stated that the app allows users to “plan with intention” and “see the deeper threads that shape their life.”
The effort is still experimental. Instead of shipping a fully formed social network, Stone and Sharp are creating a product and testing it on a small, invite-only user base to see what really supports well-being.
Competing platforms like Facebook and Instagram have loyal user bases, with Facebook boasting over three billion monthly active users and Instagram having over one billion monthly active users. In comparison, Tangle is in its early stages and has yet to release a user count.
Still, Stone and Sharp offer rare credibility. They both helped build the very systems they are now trying to reform.
Tangle may change significantly before a public launch, a point Stone emphasized in an interview with The Financial Times. “It turns out that creating something to help people navigate their lifetime is difficult work, but I think it’s worth it,” he told the outlet.
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Key Takeaways
- Twitter, now X, co-founder Biz Stone and Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp have already helped create mainstream social networks.
- Now the pair are teaming up to create a new app called Tangle, which quietly launched in November on an invite-only basis.
- The app asks users a single question each day and encourages them to share the answer with friends.
Twitter, now X, co-founder Biz Stone and Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp are teaming up on a new social media app called Tangle, in an attempt to counter what they describe as the “terrible devastation” inflicted by mainstream social media on users’ minds and relationships.
Stone and Sharp’s startup overseeing Tangle, West Co, has quietly raised $29 million in funding since the pair founded it in 2023, according to a regulatory filing recently obtained by The Financial Times. Tangle, which launched in November, is West Co’s first app and is pitched as a social network “designed for intentional living.”
