Jack Dorsey: a man, a ship and one of the most successful founders and managers of modern times

There is no doubt that we are witnessing Jack Dorsey’s finest hour. Right now, in front of our eyes, Mr. Dorsey is rising higher and higher, on the same level as the legends already deceased, like Steve Jobs, and well, like Elon Musk.

The chain of events that looks like: the return to the post of CEO Twitter - an application for the initial placement of Square securities on the NASDAQ, gives rise to some thoughts about the nature of Jack Dorsey’s values ​​and approaches. There are several reasons for this.
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Back in 2013, listening to the first report at the opening of the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, I drew attention to the following words of Harry Weinerchuk (the quotation is not accurate, the author’s interpretation): “No one except Jack Dorsey has the right to call himself a“ serial entrepreneur ”- he is the only one who was able to repeat the success twice. " Today we would say that it was possible for Mask with Tesla and Space X, but almost two years ago it was not so obvious and was a topic for discussion.

One way or another, this publication is not for the well-glorified praise of Jack, but for an attempt to reasonably analyze some of the details of the life path. Dorsey is such a retrospective of what is happening, primarily with Square, which we know less than Twitter.

For a start, how Square earns, now, more than $ 850 million a year, when assessing the company's capitalization at $ 6 billion.

One scheme :



In its own application (type S-1) for an IPO, the company describes four steps to monetize the product:

1. As soon as the buyer is ready to make a purchase, the seller enters the transaction parameters into the POS-terminal Square and transfers it to the buyer’s hands - on the screen, at this moment, the amount is indicated;
2. The buyer confirms the transaction in one of three ways (NFC-module, magnetic strip or chip authorization);
3. Square POS terminal sends the transaction to the company's data center, which acts as a payment service provider (PSP);
4. Square makes a payment and sends a confirmation to a separate microprocessor (acquiring chip) of the terminal through the network, Square cuts off its payment transaction.

And in the second illustration, the entire Square ecosystem provided by partner stores is shown:



How did Jack Dorsey succeed, after Twitter, which set a completely new standard in network communication and self-expression, to create a successful product in a completely different, in no way contiguous, area?

Let's take a look at some interesting facts from the biography of Jack Dorsey:

• Programming Jack Dorsey began studying in high school (Bishop DuBourg High School) in St. Louis. At 15 Dorsey wrote software for the dispatching taxi service used by some transport companies so far;
• During his free time from visiting electronics stores or fantasy football leagues, Dorsey often attended punk rock concerts;
• Like many, Dorsey did not graduate from the college where he studied, he also did not graduate from the University of Missouri and Science, transferring to New York University a year before he finally dropped out of school;
• In 2000, Dorsey created the first prototype of an application that allowed notifying friends about life events via email and instant messages on Blackberry. No one was keenly interested and Dorsey put the product aside, ceasing to do it;
• Dorsey met the future co-founders of Twitter at Odeo, a podcasting company that went bankrupt in 2006, then Jack went back to his original idea of ​​the messenger, who later became Twitter;
• March 21, 2006, this message appeared:
• Dorsey, Evans and Stone (the three co-founders) bought the Twitter domain for $ 7,000, and Dorsey pulled the ring out of his nose, which was a condition for him to take the office of CEO. Jack is 30 years old that year;
• But Dorsey had already started to “drift” the other way - in 2008, Evan Williams took the post of CEO, Dorsey retires to the position of chairman of the board of directors and immediately starts working on new projects: invested in Foursquare and launches Square;
• In 2011, Dorsey takes the first Twitter interview from US President Barack Obama;
• In November 2013, Twitter goes public and Jack turns into a billionaire;
• Dorsey goes to work by bus: “Of course, I can see everything here. I see how people use Instagram, Vine and Snapchat, I see how people choose between Twitter and Facebook - it's awesome! ”;
• Jack has a masseuse license.

It seems to me that this small, if you take a person’s life, set of facts shows how versatile a person is Jack Dorsey. Perhaps this explains how, in the near future, he will bring another start-up unicorn to the securities market, having done twice what it is not possible to complete successfully the notorious 1st percent.

Square IPO waiting for many, but someone has already called it "the most interesting this year." There are a lot of reasons: here is the valuation of the company (6 billion, as already mentioned), and the possible risks that only add to the adventurism and desire to invest in numerous venture capital investors.

In the S-1 application, the company bluntly states that "Jack Dorsey is a serious risk for Square, as he is Twitter CEO, which may affect his ability to devote time and energy to the company's objectives." This is probably true, but it’s worth recognizing that Dorsey is Square’s only hope, which was proved by his return appointment to Twitter CEO.

For example, recently it became known that Jack Dorsey gave up 20% of his own shares to the company, since they were needed to allocate options to employees — there were no free securities left, and to issue them would have to dilute the shares of existing shareholders, which is often criticized and misunderstanding. He still has 25% left and they will almost certainly double his fortune, but we don’t see such broad gestures as a frequent practice in the work of IT companies and start-ups.

Moreover, Jack says that in the future he will give another 10% for the benefit of Square employees. Many will ask: “Why?” - then, in order for the company to grow and the employees to be motivated, Jack answers. Many will ask: “Why?” - because I can, Jack answers.

And for some reason it seems that this is not the last successful company entering the public securities market, to the creation of which Jack Dorsey had a hand.