Jack Dorsey

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Lore & Background

Dorsey was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, to Timothy G. Dorsey and Marcia A. Dorsey. He is partly of Italian descent on his mother's side. He attended Bishop DuBourg High School, worked occasionally as a fashion model, and by age 14 became interested in dispatch routing. He enrolled at the University of Missouri–Rolla in 1995, transferred to New York University in 1997, but dropped out two years later, one semester short of graduating. He came up with the idea that eventually became Twitter while studying at New York University. He approached Odeo, which was interested in text messaging, and with Biz Stone built a prototype of Twitter in about two weeks. Dorsey became Twitter's CEO in 2006, prioritizing uptime over revenue. He lost his position in 2008, reportedly for leaving work early for yoga and fashion design, and became executive chairman in 2008, serving until 2015. In July 2015 became interim CEO, later permanent CEO in October 2015. In November 2016, his own Twitter account was briefly suspended due to an internal mistake. In 2022, he wrote that his biggest mistake was investing in tools to manage public conversation rather than tools for users. When Twitter was sold to Elon Musk in October 2022, Dorsey's 2.4% ownership stake was bought out for cash, and he did not retain shares in the new private company. He also co-founded Block, Inc., which owns Square, Cash App, Afterpay, Bitkey, and Tidal. In February 2020, activist hedge fund Elliott Management sought to oust him as Twitter CEO, but an agreement allowed him to remain.

Reader's Guide

Jack Dorsey's significance lies in his role as a co-founder of Twitter, a platform that fundamentally changed public communication, news dissemination, and political discourse worldwide. His early vision of a real-time status-message service, inspired by dispatch routing and instant messaging, evolved into a global microblogging network used by billions. His tenure as CEO saw Twitter navigate growth, controversies over content moderation, political advertising bans, and allegations of foreign interference in elections. Dorsey also pioneered mobile payments through Square, democratizing credit card processing for small businesses, and later built Block, Inc. into a financial technology conglomerate. Critics and supporters alike note his emphasis on simplicity, constraint, and craftsmanship as guiding principles, as well as his acknowledgment of mistakes, such as not building user-facing moderation tools. His legacy is intertwined with the rise of social media's power and its challenges.

Did You Know?

• Dorsey was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, to Timothy G. Dorsey and Marcia A. Dorsey.
• He attended Bishop DuBourg High School and worked occasionally as a fashion model.
• By age 14, he became interested in dispatch routing, which later inspired the idea for Twitter.
• He dropped out of New York University in 1999, one semester short of graduating.
• In November 2016, his own Twitter account was briefly suspended due to an internal mistake.