GETTYFascinated by maps, a teenage computer
programmer began coordinating commercial
drivers to communicate with each other in real
time. Three decades later, using short bursts of
inconsequential information, Jack Dorsey has
millions of people around the world sending
more than half a billion tweets a day.
“Make every detail perfect
and limit the number of
details to perfect.”PERFECTION
IS KEY“My goal is to simplify complexity.
I just want to build stuff that
really simplifies our base
human interaction.”KEEP IT SIMPLESTAY FOCUSEDFIVE FAST FACTS
DID YOU KNOW JACK...- stuttered as a child
- finds it insulting to
be called a nerd - removed his nose ring
to look like a CEO - has a tattoo made up of
abstract patterns and the
image of a human collarbone - is a licensed masseur
CAREER IN BRIEF
Jack launches a company used to dispatch couriers,
taxis and emergency services. He also builds
a prototype allowing him to update his daily activities
to his friends, but realising there was little interest
in it, parks the idea.Jack co-founds a site where users could post short
messages of 140 characters, called ‘tweets’,
and releases the world’s first tweet to himself:
“just setting up my twtr”.Named one of the world’s top innovators under 35
by MIT Technology Review, but forced out of his
Twitter CEO role reportedly because of his inability
to solve an outage issue and his quirky habits of
practising yoga and attending fashion school.Launches Square, an electronic payment service
allowing users to accept credit cards through
their mobile phones.Jack returns to Twitter as Executive Chairman.Jack is reinstated as Twitter’s CEO as the company
boasts 330 million monthly users and more than
25 offices around the world.
He takes his other company Square public.Aged 41, with a net worth exceeding
US$2.8 billion, Jack remains one of the world’s
most eligible bachelors.“I am someone who tweets
about what I have for breakfast,
what I have for lunch, what I
have for dinner and for
99.99999 per cent of the
world it’s useless. It’s
meaningless. But for my
mother, she loves it.”“You can worry about
the competition...
or you can focus on
what’s ahead of
you and drive fast.”160 | theceomagazine.comCEO CV