Square

Today, every successful entrepreneur aims towards giving the world something which will make the lives of people easier. In order to achieve success, an entrepreneur must think of benefitting the people in any way possible. Therefore, with the help of technology, several apps are being launched which are bringing the world closer. One such entrepreneur is Jack Dorsey, who has made a tremendous contribution to bringing the world closer with his revolutionary ideas.

Early Life

Born on 19th November 1976 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, Jack Dorsey was a computer lover from the early years of his life. His parents Tim and Marcia Dorsey continuously supported and encouraged his passion for computers. Tim worked as an engineer in a company manufacturing mass spectrometers, while Marcia was a housewife.

In his teenage years, Jack spent hours studying the early versions of IBM. His first ambitious idea was to build a live map of New York City, displaying small moving dots, which would represent ambulances, taxis, police vehicles, fire brigades, etc. After moving to a new place Jack would go on long late night walks in the city to get a visual idea for his map.

As a child, Jack faced a stuttering problem while speaking, so he used to keep quiet most of the time. But, taking control over this weakness was what made him a survivor and ready to face more difficult challenges and how to solve them. Therefore, he would sign up for various oratory competitions. After several failed attempts, he finally managed to speak normally.

Jack attended high school at Bishop DuBourg in St. Louis, Missouri. Then he further went to attend the University of Missouri of Science and Technology, but, soon transferred to New York University. He was an active member of computer club during his high school. Jack’s first computer programming experience was at the age of 14 when he wrote few programs for taxi dispatching and firefighting services. He made this programs using an open source platform and they are still used by some taxi companies even today.

Early Career

Jack initially applied for an internship at Mira Digital Publishing Company in the summer of 1991. And just within a few weeks, he was leading a team of programmers. This was quite a sight when a teenager was leading a team in their thirties. His second company was Dispatch Management Services Corp. Jack got a job at this company in an unusual way. He hacked the company’s website and contacted the manager explaining the loophole in their company’s software. He was immediately hired as a programmer and here’s where Jack was first introduced to an idea which would later become biggest social networking platform – Short Messaging Services (SMS). He also learned about a program through which a dispatcher could track the movements of couriers in real time.

This led him to move to Oakland and start his own company of dispatching taxis and emergency services, through the internet. However, the dot-com bubble left him jobless and for the next five years, he focused on freelancing.

Birth of Twitter

Later, with the idea of SMS, he was hired by ODEO, which specialized in Internet Startups. Here Jack met other talented programmers including Biz Stone. Jack discussed his idea of short messaging services with Stone, and they both went on to make the first prototype of Twitter. On March 21, 2006, Twitter took first entry into the microblogging service when Jack twitted the very first tweet, “just setting up my twttr”. The service was officially launched for the public in June 2006.

When ODEO ran into financial crises, it also caused a funding problem for Twitter. But, Fred Wilson soon showed interest in the company and offered Jack about a half-million dollars cheque. Later, Evan Williams and Noah Glass also came aboard Twitter. As per a recent survey, by SimilarWeb analytics tool, Twitter gets 2.2 billion visits per month.

Founder of Square

Jack did not stop at the success of Twitter but moved on to create some more exciting projects. His next successful venture was set up in 2010 called Square – a café POS system and mobile payment company. The unique feature of this product is its size. It is small square-sized hardware, which is inserted into the headphone jack. It has a magnetic reader to read credit/debit cards. Due to its small size and great potential Starbucks invested $25 million, on August 8th, 2012 in Square.

Jack Dorsey is counted as one of the most successful and genius people in the world. As of 2015, his net worth was calculated to be $2.3 billion. Today, Twitter is actively used by politicians, celebrities, and artists across the globe. And, Square is on the path to change the mobile payments industry.