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Jack Dorsey is an American businessman who co-founded Twitter. Twitter, an online social networking service that enables users to send and read short messages called "tweets", is one of the ten most-visited websites in the world. Dorsey is also the founder of Square, a mobile payments company that markets several software and hardware payments products. A computer programmer by profession, he became interested in dispatch routing while still in his teens. He loved computers from as long as he can remember and spent hours studying the IBM computer model available at that time. He was fascinated with the concept of coordinating taxicabs, couriers, emergency services, and other fleets of vehicles and wanted to create a live map of his city, displaying the vehicles in motion as small moving red dots. He was just 15 when he wrote a program for dispatching taxis and firefighting services. He went on to study at the Missouri University of Science and Technology before shifting to the New York University where he first came up with the idea for Twitter. He dropped out before receiving his degree to follow his passion. Teaming up with a few friends, he launched Twitter in 2006.
Childhood & Early Life
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Jack Dorsey was born on November 19, 1976, in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, to Marcia Smith and Tim Dorsey.
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His father was an engineer of medical equipment and worked for a company that developed mass spectrometers. As a result of his father’s job which required the family to move frequently from one place to another, young Jack developed a love for maps.
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He went to Bishop du Bourg High School in St. Louis, Missouri. He was known to be a quiet boy as he suffered from stuttering. Jack was determined to overcome this challenge and participated in a variety of oratory competitions and was finally able to speak normally.
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He developed an early interest in computers and was a member of his school’s computer club. He also spent considerable time studying the available model of IBM computers.
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His childhood fascination with maps developed into a serious hobby in his teenage. He became interested in the challenges of coordinating the taxicabs, delivery vans, ambulances, etc. and created software programs for taxi dispatching and firefighting services when he was just 15.
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After high school he enrolled at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. Eventually he transferred to New York University. It was here that he came up with the idea of sharing short messages with friends easily in order to update them on his status. He did not stay long enough in the university to complete his degree and dropped out.
Career
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Jack Dorsey started working as a programmer and moved to Oakland, California in 2000 in search of better career prospects. He started a company to dispatch taxis, couriers and emergency services using his dispatch software.
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During this time he also started getting serious about his idea for a short message communication service that would update his friends about his status in real-time.
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Meanwhile his company failed and Dorsey struggled for the next few years. He made his living by freelancing and even went to massage therapy courses. However, he never forgot his dream of creating the short message service he had envisioned.
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He approached Odeo, a directory and search destination website, which was showing interest in text messaging. He managed to attract the interest of Odeo co-founder Evan Williams and one of the company’s executives, Biz Stone.
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In October 2006, Dorsey, along with Biz Stone, Evan Williams, and some other members of Odeo, formed Obvious Corporation which later evolved into “Twitter”. Within two weeks Dorsey created a simple site where users could instantly post short messages of 140 characters or less called “tweets”.
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Initially Dorsey served as Twitter’s CEO and in 2008 Williams took over the role of CEO, while Dorsey became chairman of the board. The company grew rapidly and within five years of its founding, Twitter users were sending 50 million tweets per day.
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In 2009, Dorsey teamed up with fellow entrepreneur and computer science engineer Jim McKelvey to form Square Inc. Primarily started as a mobile payments company, Square eventually branched into financial and merchant services as well. The company is a fast growing one and Dorsey serves as its CEO.
Major Works
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Jack Dorsey is best known as the co-founder of online social networking service Twitter. Launched in 2006, the service became extremely popular within months and as of May 2015, Twitter has more than 500 million users and more than 25 offices around the world.
Awards & Achievements
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He was included in the MIT Technology Review TR35 as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35, in 2008.
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He was awarded the "Innovator of the Year Award" for technology by ‘The Wall Street Journal’ in 2012.
Personal Life & Legacy
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Jack Dorsey has dated many women including British model Lily Cole and yoga instructor Kate Greer.
Net Worth
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As of June 2015, Jack Dorsey has a net worth of US $2.4 billion.
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