Introduction

Jack Dorsey is an American businessman known as the founder of the social network Twitter. Dorsey is co-founder and executive director of Twitter, the company behind the social networking service where users post tweets. 

The San Francisco-based company has more than 300 million monthly users and reported revenues of $ 2.4 billion in 2017. Dorsey is also CEO of Square, a mobile payments company. Jack Dorsey’s net worth is $ 4.1 B as of May 2019.

Early Life

The inventor of Twitter, Dorsey was born on November 19, 1976, in St. Louis, Missouri. He grew up in St. Louis, Dorsey became interested in computers and communications from an early age and began programming while a student at the University. 

In Bishop DuBourg high school, Dorsey was fascinated by the technological problems of coordinating delivery vans, taxi drivers, and other fleets of vehicles that needed to remain in constant communication and in real-time with each other. 

When he was 15 years old, Dorsey wrote office software that is still used by some taxi companies.

Career

After a brief stint at Missouri University of Science and Technology, Dorsey moved to New York University. In the tradition of computer entrepreneurs, such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, he dropped out of college before earning his degree. 

Dorsey relocated to Oakland, California, and in 2000 he started a company that offers the Web-based dispatch software. Shortly after starting his business, Dorsey had the idea of ​​a site that combined the broad scope of dispatch software with the ease of instant messaging.

Some initially ridiculed Twitter as a tool for shallow and self-centred people to convey the details of their lives to the universe. The night comedy host, Conan O’Brien, even introduced a segment called “Twitter Tracker” that mocked service users. 

In Twitter’s early days, the site also suffered frequent service outages. But when celebrities and CEOs started tweeting, Twitter was no longer the worst part of so many jokes. Swiftly, the head of the “microblogging” movement. Twitter became a powerful platform for US presidential candidates. Former President Barack Obama and John McCain in 2008, used Twitter as a method to update their supporters during the campaign. 

Dorsey, however, had noticed other projects. He became a pro-investor in the social networking company Foursquare and launched a new company, Square, which allows people to receive payments by credit card through a small device connected to their mobile phone or computer. 

Twitter may have already revolutionized the way people communicate, but Dorsey is not over yet. Dorsey said, “In terms of technology, we’re going to see a better and more immediate experience around the everyday things we do in life.” 

In November 2013, Jack Dorsey saw his fortune grow enormously, thanks to the early public offering of Twitter. The company’s stock had a stock start price of $ 26, but the price quickly rose to $ 45 during its first day of trading. 

In a few hours, the value of approximately 23.4 million shares of Dorsey made him a multimillionaire. He has already started discussing the possibility of an IPO for his other company, Square, in 2014.

In 2015, Dorsey returned to Twitter. He first served as interim CEO and then became its CEO. Afterward, he officially took the company’s top spot; he announced that the company would reduce approximately 8% of its workforce. 

This move is “part of a general plan to organize around the company’s top product priorities and drive efficiency throughout the company,” according to a securities report published by Twitter in the Los Angeles Times.

Highlights

In addition to his very large stakes in Twitter and Square, Dorsey has also personally invested his own money in companies such as:

Flipboard

Kickstarter

Fancy

Foursquare

Dorsey has presumably done very well with these investments – Foursquare, for one, is reportedly valued at $600 million. 

Favourite Quotes

“Make every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect.” – Jack Dorsey

“I’ve always been fascinated by cities and how they work. And I taught myself how to program so I can understand how the city works.” – Jack Dorsey

“A founder is not a job, it’s a role, an attitude.” – Jack Dorsey

“You don’t have to start from scratch to do something interesting.” – Jack Dorsey

“You can worry about the competition… or you can focus on what’s ahead of you and drive fast.” – Jack Dorsey

“Expect the unexpected. And whenever possible, be the unexpected.” – Jack Dorsey

“I like any colony-based structure, where you have a strong dependence on a network… Aspen trees grow in groups. If one of them dies, they all suffer.” – Jack Dorsey

Life Lessons

Jack Dorsey isn’t the man you expect him to be.

You may know him as the serial entrepreneur founder of both Twitter and Square.

Dorsey’s two-billion-dollar companies are thriving. But Dorsey still takes the bus to work.

There’s a method behind this “unexpected” behaviour. Everything Jack Dorsey does, from his never-changing morning routine to his insistence on having “an amazing haircut” is meticulously considered — and his habits and attitudes are the backbones for Dorsey’s continued success. Luckily for us, Dorsey’s come out into the spotlight a little bit in the last couple years and been more willing to share the life and business lessons behind his success.

Play

Ever since he was a little boy, Jack Dorsey loved the hustle and bustle of city life. He spent hours sitting in front of his parents’ old police scanner, listening in as the ambulances, firetrucks, and police cars reported their movements. By the age of 14, Jack programmed an imaginary city on his family computer for the fun of it.

Ever since Dorsey has been finding ways to turn his love for tracking city activity into a career. In high school, Dorsey tried started a bicycle courier service with his brother but it wasn’t meant to be.”

Jack quickly found out that St. Louis did not need bicycle couriers at all.” By the time Dorsey was in college, he worked in NYC as a programmer for a company that managed dispatch centres for couriers.

Still, in his early 20’s, Dorsey had followed his play not just to a rewarding career, but to his first billion-dollar idea.

Wait for your big ideas time to come.

Dorsey first had the idea for Twitter in 2000. But texting wasn’t big yet. The average American sent only 35 texts per month. Dorsey told Vanity Fair, “I quickly learned that… no one else had a mobile e-mail device, so the system was kind of useless.”

Jack decided to pursue a career in botanic illustration instead.

That day came in 2006. Americans were on the verge of sending more text messages per month than phone calls. Jack started Twitter in March 2006 and launched it by July. The time was right and Twitter exploded.

Be the unexpected

“Expect the unexpected. And whenever possible, be the unexpected.” – Jack Dorsey

Who saw Twitter coming in 2006? The list starts and ends with Jack Dorsey.

Look out for surprises and embrace the unexpected.

Look for Inspiration in Everyday Life

In high school, Jack worked as a barista at his mom’s coffee shop and saw how much the small business could have benefited from seamlessly accepting credit card payment. 

The same is true of another teenage job, working for glass artist (and eventual Square co-founder) Jim McKelvey. Dorsey lost a $2,000 sale because he couldn’t take credit cards.

Within these observations were the seeds for Square — and today Dorsey continues to go out of his way to look for inspiration in everyday life. 

The reason? It’s so he can observe how people are using their mobile devices firsthand and incorporate their behaviour into his company policy at Square and Twitter.

Embrace Routine

Dorsey starts every morning the same way: he eats two hard-boiled eggs with soy sauce and a side of berries, then tweets about it (for his mom’s benefit).

Jack also has his weeks meticulously planned out, as he explains…

“All my days are themed. Monday is management. At Square we have a directional meeting, at Twitter, we have our opcomm [operating committee] meeting. Tuesday is a product, engineering, and design. Wednesday is marketing, growth, and communications. Thursday is partnership and developers. Friday is a company and culture. It works in 24-hour blocks. On days beginning with T, I start at Twitter in the morning, then go to Square in the afternoon. 

Sundays are for strategy, and I do a lot of job interviews. Saturday is a day off.”

Dorsey links his rigid routine to his “discipline” and productivity.

Summary

Jack is one of the young billionaires of our time. At just the age of 41, he is estimated to have a net worth of $4.1 billion, which is a huge fortune. 

Jack is a successful entrepreneur, despite dropping out of college and not receiving his degree, he has set new standards for aspiring a new generation.

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