Twitter, which will be bought by Elon Musk, was founded by, among others, Jack Dorsey. Among other Twitter founders, this 45-year-old man is arguably the most famous. How is his life story?
Perhaps, one of the common characteristics of leaders in the world of technology is a fondness for tinkering with computers since childhood. Likewise with Jack Dorsey.
He was born on November 19, 1976 in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Dorsey admitted that he had been introduced to computers since he was 8 years old, so he was familiar with technology when he was young.
At the age of 13 while in high school, he started programming. Two years later, he succeeded in creating an open source software for managing taxi communications which is still used today.
Jack Dorsey attended the Missouri University of Science & Technology, then moved to New York University. He didn't have time to finish his studies. Dorsey chose to move to Oakland, California in 2000. He founded a company that offers his software creations via the internet.
Forerunner of Twitter
One day, Dorsey got the idea to create a website that accommodates short communication in real time. Convinced the idea was a good one, he approached a company called Odeo to offer the concept.
"He came to us with the idea what if we could easily share messages with friends?," said Biz Stone, a former Odeo executive.
Jack Dorsey, Stone and Odeo founder, Evan Williams, finally decided to start a new company called Obvious. The company later changed its name to Twitter.
Within 2 weeks, Dorsey managed to create a simple prototype website where users could post messages in 140 characters. This is the forerunner of the Twitter site that we know today.
On March 21, 2006, Jack Dorsey posted the world's first Twitter. "Just setting up my twttr," wrote Dorsey.
Indeed, Twitter was named twttr before it was changed to its current name. Dorsey was appointed as the first CEO of Twitter. In 2009, the position of CEO was replaced by Evan Williams. Then Dick Costolo became the successor to William Dorsey as CEO of Twitter.
Not long ago, Dorsey stepped down from CEO of Twitter, replaced by Parag Agrawal. In addition to Twitter, Dorsey owns the mobile payment company Square, where he serves as CEO. He also invested in FourSquare.
His last fortune in the range of USD 6.6 billion. It was widely reported that he would return to Twitter's Board of Directors when Twitter was under Elon Musk's control.