Jack Dorsey

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Jack Dorsey
Jack Dorsey 2012 Shankbone.JPG
Dorsey at the 2012 Time 100 Gala.
Born (1976-11-19) November 19, 1976 (age 36)
Fairmont City, Illinois, U.S.
Residence San Francisco, California, U.S.
Occupation web developer, entrepreneur
Net worth Increase US$1.1 billion (March 2013)[1][2]

Jack Dorsey (born November 19, 1976) is an American web developer and businessman widely known as the creator of Twitter and as the founder and CEO of Square, a mobile payments company.[3] In 2008, he was named to the MIT Technology Review TR35 as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35.[4] For 2012, The Wall Street Journal gave him the "Innovator of the Year Award" for technology.[5]

Contents

Early years [edit]

Dorsey grew up in St. Louis, Missouri,[6] and by age 13, he had become interested in dispatch routing. Some of the open source software he created in the area of dispatch logistics is still used by many taxi cab companies.[6] He was raised Catholic, and his uncle is a Catholic priest in Cincinnati.[7] He went to Catholic high school at Bishop DuBourg High School and attended the Missouri University of Science and Technology before subsequently transferring to New York University, where he first came up with the idea for Twitter.[8]

While working on dispatching as a programmer, he later moved to California.[9][10]

long view of stage with Stone and Dorsey speaking in front of a slide presentation
Biz Stone and Dorsey accepting a Crunchie award for best mobile startup

In Oakland in 2000, Dorsey started his company to dispatch couriers, taxis, and emergency services from the Web.[11] His other projects and ideas at this time included networks of medical devices and a "frictionless service market".[11] In July 2000, building on dispatching[6] and inspired in part by LiveJournal and possibly by AOL Instant Messenger, he had the idea for a Web-based realtime status/short message communication service.[11]

When he first saw implementations of instant messaging, Dorsey wondered whether the software's user status output could be shared among friends easily.[6] He approached Odeo, who at the time happened to be interested in text messaging.[6] Dorsey and Biz Stone decided that SMS text suited the status message idea, and built a prototype of Twitter in about two weeks.[6] The idea attracted many users at Odeo and investment from Evan Williams[6] who had left Google after selling it Pyra Labs and Blogger.

Producer Tom Anderson and correspondent Lara Logan interviewed Dorsey for a segment of CBS 60 Minutes called "The Innovator: Jack Dorsey" which aired during March 2013.[12] In 2013, talking to CNN, Dorsey expressed admiration for Michael Bloomberg and his reinvention through design and simple interfaces of what it means to be mayor.[13] Dorsey thinks becoming mayor of New York City is an aspiration that would raise the bar for him.[13]

Twitter, Inc. [edit]

Main article: Twitter
Dorsey in 2008.
Dorsey at a Twitter Town Hall during 2011 alongside United States President Barack Obama.

Dorsey, Stone and Noah Glass co-founded Obvious, which then spun off Twitter, Inc.[14][6] In his role during the pivotal days of the company's founding, a compilation chronicling the originally named "twttr" and the time leading up to the official launch, is shown in a timeline of tweets revealing Twitter's beginnings.[15] As chief executive officer, Dorsey saw the startup through two rounds of funding by the venture capitalists who backed the company.[16] On October 16, 2008,[17] Williams took over the role of CEO, and Dorsey became chairman of the board.[18][19] On March 28, 2011, Dorsey returned to Twitter as Executive Chairman.[20]

As the service began to grow in popularity, Dorsey chose the improvement of uptime as top priority,[21] even over creating revenue – which, as of 2008, Twitter was not designed to earn.[22] Dorsey described the commercial use of Twitter and its API as two things that could lead to paid features.[22] His three guiding principles, which are shared by the whole company and through its culture, are simplicity, constraint, and craftsmanship.[22]

Square, Inc. [edit]

Main article: Square, Inc.
[icon] This section requires expansion. (May 2010)

Dorsey developed a small business platform to accept debit and credit card payments on a mobile device called Square, released in May 2010. The small, square-shaped device attaches to iPhone, iPad or Android devices via the headphone jack, and as a mini card reader allows a person to swipe her or his card, choose an amount to give to the recipient and then sign his or her name for confirmation. Square is also a system for sending paperless receipts via text message or email, and is available as a free app for iOS and Android OS.[23][24] The company grew from 10 employees in December 2009 to over a hundred employees by June 2011. Square's office is located on Mission Street in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood.[25] In September 2012, Business Insider magazine valued Square Inc. at $3.2 billion.[26]

References [edit]

  1. ^ Forbes The World's Billionaires -Jack Dorsey March 2013
  2. ^ Karsten Strauss, Karsten. "The New Billionaire Behind Twitter And Square: Jack Dorsey". Retrieved 25 July 2012. 
  3. ^ Strange, Adario (April 20, 2007). "Flickr Document Reveals Origin Of Twitter". Wired News (CondéNet). Retrieved November 5, 2008. 
  4. ^ "TR35 Young Innovator". Technology Review (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). 2008. Retrieved November 5, 2008. 
  5. ^ "Innovator of the Year Awards". WSJ. Magazine (Dow Jones). 2012. Retrieved March 18, 2013. 
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Glaser, Mark (May 17, 2007). "Twitter Founders Thrive on Micro-Blogging Constraints". Public Broadcasting Service. Retrieved November 5, 2008. 
  7. ^ [1]
  8. ^ "Co-founder of Twitter receives key to St. Louis with 140 character proclamation". ksdk.com. KSDK. September 19, 2009. Retrieved September 29, 2009. "After high school in St. Louis and some time at the University of Missouri-Rolla, Jack headed east to New York University." 
  9. ^ BusinessWeek (March 26, 2007). "Tech's Next Gen: The Best and Brightest". BusinessWeek (The McGraw-Hill Companies). Retrieved November 5, 2008. 
  10. ^ Dorsey, Jack (April 8, 2009). "To be clear: I didn't attend Cornell (and didn't invent Twitter there).". Twitter. Retrieved April 13, 2009. 
  11. ^ a b c Dorsey, Jack (March 24, 2006). "twttr sketch". Flickr. Yahoo!. Retrieved 2008-11-07. 
  12. ^ Jack Dorsey interviewed by Lara Logan (March 17, 2013). The Innovator: Jack Dorsey (13:14 running time). 60 Minutes: CBS Interactive. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50143017n. Retrieved March 18, 2013.
  13. ^ a b Tapper, Jake and Pham, Sherisse (March 21, 2013). "Jack Dorsey on his desire to be mayor of New York City, Steve Jobs, and being a bachelor". CNN (Turner Broadcasting). Retrieved March 25, 2013. 
  14. ^ Patrick Hoge. Executive of the Year: Jack Dorsey. ‘’San Francisco Business Times’’. December 23, 2011.
  15. ^ http://chirpstory.com/li/1004
  16. ^ Miller, Claire Cain (October 16, 2008). "Twitter Sidelines One Founder and Promotes Another". The New York Times (The New York Times Company). Retrieved November 5, 2008. 
  17. ^ Miller, Claire Cain (October 20, 2008). "Popularity or Income? Two Sites Fight It Out". The New York Times (The New York Times Company). Retrieved November 5, 2008. 
  18. ^ McCarthy, Caroline (October 16, 2008). "Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey steps down". CNET News (CBS Interactive). Retrieved November 5, 2008. 
  19. ^ Jack Dorsey Tells David Kirkpatrick How It Felt to Be Ousted from Twitter and Discusses His Big New Idea: Square. ‘’Vanity Fair’’. March 3,2011.
  20. ^ "Jack Dorsey Officially Returns to Twitter". Mashable. March 28, 2011. 
  21. ^ Wagner, Mitch (June 24, 2008). "Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey: Improved Uptime Is Top Priority". InformationWeek (United Business ...Media). Retrieved November 5, 2008. 
  22. ^ a b c Wagner, Mitch (June 24, 2008). "Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Talks About Its Business Model". InformationWeek (United Business Media). Retrieved November 5, 2008. 
  23. ^ Square
  24. ^ Jessi Hempel. Jack Dorsey: The man with two brains. ‘’Fortune’’. June 1, 2011.
  25. ^ Pollock, Jennifer (June 30, 2011). "CH+D Office Space: Square in San Francisco's Chronicle Building". California Home + Design. Retrieved September 19, 2011. 
  26. ^ Shontell, Alyssa (October 3, 2012). "THE DIGITAL 100: The World's Most Valuable Private Tech Companies". Business Insider. Retrieved October 4, 2012. 

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jack Dorsey

Video

Business positions
Preceded by
Company founded		 Twitter CEO
2006-2008		 Succeeded by
Evan Williams
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Executives
Board
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