Spill's CEO on becoming more than 'Black Twitter'

About this episode

Alphonzo “Phonz” Terrell discusses the creation of Spill and its vision for serving Black and queer communities in the social media landscape.

In 2022, Alphonzo “Phonz” Terrell was the global head of social and editorial at Twitter until he was part of the mass layoffs following Elon Musk's acquisition of the company. Terrell and his fellow Twitter alum DeVaris Brown immediately pivoted to create their own social media platform, Spill. After years of seeing how harmful and exploitative social media apps can be to Black and queer folks in particular, they were determined to design a space to serve and safeguard the communities that actually drive online culture. It's easy to think of Spill as Black Twitter getting its own platform. And while Terrell is devoted to maintaining the trust of its users and building more equity for them, what he really sees Spill becoming is an operating system for fandom. In this episode of Creative Control, Terrell explains how being a "failed" musician set his career in motion, what the future of fandom looks like, how he's navigating brand partnerships with community trust, and what growth opportunities he sees for Spill in a very chaotic social landscape. For more of the latest business and innovation news, go to https://www.fastcompany.com/news To listen to the latest episodes of…

People in this episode

Host: Fast Company

Guest: Alphonzo “Phonz” Terrell

Topics covered

• social media
• Black culture
• fandom
• community trust
• entrepreneurship

Keywords

• Spill
• Alphonzo Terrell
• Black Twitter
• social media
• fandom
• community trust
• entrepreneurship

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Twitter, Spill

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