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Jack Dorsey is the co-founder of both Twitter and Square. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri on November 19, 1976 where his early interest in computer, communications and programming began. During his years as a student at Bishop DuBourg High School, he found an interest in programming. This interest led to his writing of a dispatch software for coordinating taxi drivers, delivery vans, and fleet vehicles with real-time communication. The software remains in use by some taxicab companies.
In 1995, Jack Dorsey attended the Missouri University of Science and Technology until 1997. In that year, he transferred to New York University where he attended until 1999, at which point he dropped out. During his time at New York University, he had ideas similar to what would later become Twitter.
Before starting Twitter, Jack Dorsey dabbled in fashion design and achieved a certification as a masseur.
Jack Dorsey approached defunct company Odeo to pitch his concept for Twitter. This led Biz Stone, Evan Williams, both co-founders of Odeo, and Noah Glass to found a new company with Jack Dorsey called Obvious Corporation. Obvious Corporation spun off Twitter, Inc. with Jack Dorsey as the chief executive officer. The first "tweet" was sent out by Jack Dorsey on March 21, 2006, which read "just setting up my twttr". Dorsey led Twitter through two venture capital funding rounds before he was replaced as CEO by Evan Williams in 2008.
Jack Dorsey returned to Twitter as CEO in 2015. And in 2016 he gave nearly one third of his Twitter shares to employees.
In October 2020, Jack Dorsey, in his role as CEO at Twitter, was part of the United States Senate Commerce Committees subpoena on the legal immunity technology companies Twitter, Facebook, and Google receive under Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934. Dorsey stepped down from his role as CEO on November 29, 2021.
In 2010, along with co-founder Jim McKelvey, Dorsey created Square, a platform to accept debit and credit car payments on a mobile device. As well as payments, the device allowed for sending paperless receipts via text message or email as well. Jack Dorsey was named CEO of Square.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Jack Dorsey as CEO for Twitter and Square, offered employees from both companies the option to work from home permanently.
He also created a $1 billion relief fund using his Square equity. He called the fund Start Small and posted a tally of disbursements and recipients in a public spreadsheet. As part of this announcement, he suggested the Start Small fund would shift focus to other causes at a later date. The possible causes mentioned included health and education for girls and universal basic income.
Since 2009, Jack Dorsey has made personal investments in other startups. These have included investments in Foursquare, Kickstarter, Flipboard, Instagram, Peek, Intercom, CoinList, and Jelly.
Jack Dorsey has held advisor and board member roles at The Walt Disney Company, Twitter, Fancy, Techonomy Media, Ustream, Square, and Thrive Capital.
Jack Dorsey has participated in different philanthropic ventures and efforts. These have included his fully funding 600 Missouri public school projects registered at DonorsChoose in March 2016. In October 2019, Dorsey donated $350,000 to #TeamTrees, which pledged to plant 20 million trees by the end of 2019. In August 2020, Dorsey donated $10 million to Boston University's Center of Antiracist Research.
