How Jack Dorsey Runs Both Twitter, Square

http://www.wsj.com/article_email/how-jack-dorsey-runs-both-twitter-square-1450713601-lMyQjAxMTA1OTI5MTUyMDE5Wj

by prostoalex • 11 years ago

67 55 11 years ago

n0us• 11 years ago

I think his status as a single child-free person goes understated in this article. It takes a special kind of husband/wife to be okay with someone who works this hard and not having to juggle a home life frees up his schedule to a huge degree. I can imagine working hard 18hr days while still in my 30s, but I cannot imagine doing that while maintaining a marriage and taking care of a kid or two. The guy is a billionaire so I guess he could pay for full time staff to help out but that isn't really the same as being there in person.

melling• 11 years ago

Plenty of executives work long hours. In fact I imagine most do. I can't find it, but I remember reading where Scott McNealy talked about his dad working long hours as an executive at GM.

Elon Musk has 5 kids, as another example.

Briel• 11 years ago

Except Elon only gets the kids for only half the time (shares custody with his ex-wife) and has a current wife and nannies taking care of the kids when he has them. He mentioned in videos that he doesn't get to spend that much time with his kids.

Just because it's possible for executives to work long hours, it doesn't mean it's healthy for their family life to.

gaoshan• 11 years ago

I think it very much depends on how much interaction as a father you want to have with your kids.

If you want to be cooking some nice meals for them, coaching sports, attending events, assisting with homework, tucking into bed, dealing with illness, prepping for holidays, having fun together, taking vacations, etc. then you have to devote a substantial amount of time. I suspect that most of these busy CEO dads don't spend all that much time doing these things.

You only have so much time in the day and available time that corresponds to the time the child is available and active is in very short supply.

HiLo3• 11 years ago

I hear you, I really do, but plenty of guys in finance and trading work these hours and are expected to maintain regular families.

dopamean• 11 years ago

My experience growing up in New York and going to school with lots of kids of fathers in finance was very much the opposite. There was zero expectation that they maintain regular families.

MathsOX• 11 years ago

I largely agree with this, but would add that traders (and even investment bankers in their 30s/40s) will work very little on the weekend. Certainly no senior trader is in the office.

JustSomeNobody• 11 years ago

Exactly. Coming home after the kids and wife are in bed is not the same as coming home to your family.

artwork• 11 years ago

The article does state his status. In any case, not everyone wants to have a spouse and/or children.

kzhahou• 11 years ago

I'm not sure anyone here said that everyone should be married with kids.

ChuckMcM• 11 years ago

Yup. And I remember very clearly that day when it was going to be my career or my family, and I chose my family. I did so because more and more people I knew were getting more and more stressed at how pissed off their spouse was or that they never saw their kids. A number of them got divorced and could only see their children on every other weekend.

It will be interesting when he is 60 if he feels like he made the right choices.

kevindeasis• 11 years ago

Would you guys agree that Jack Dorsey is a good CEO? And one of his roles as a CEO is to be able to motivate the employees towards the mission and vision of the company? And one would also be able to delegate tasks accordingly?

Also, would you guys agree that working hard for more than 16 hours a day for an extended period of time (months) is not really productive? Even more, I'd even say unhealthy and almost unrealistic (Yes, there are special cases).

I am predicting that Jack Dorsey spends less effort on most tasks and his most cognitive demanding task is about making tough critical decisions. Would you guys agree on this?

Now, why is it that some writers like to make CEOs look like gods? I wish there was a platform where you can rate writers based on their work. I'm pretty sure making them look like gods is very unhealthy for the community. Like doesn't these kind of articles piss you off?

fao_2• 11 years ago

It's the Wall Street Journal, it is essentially articles written for CEOs and their staff; what do you expect?

wyclif4• 11 years ago

As of 2013, the WSJ had a print circulation of 2.4 million, and 900,000 digital subscribers. Do you seriously think all of those people are CEOs and staff?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_Street_Journal

danpalmer• 11 years ago

Would you guys agree that Jack Dorsey is a good CEO?

No, from what I've heard, Square isn't a particularly nice place to work - with very poor work-life balances throughout the company, and Dorsey micro-manages every little detail of design and product.

Twitter, on the other hand doesn't appear to be doing particularly well, as evidenced by the current share price, and the large amount of criticism from the tech community targeted at them.

frutiger• 11 years ago

Not that I have an opinion on Twitter, but

and the large amount of criticism from the tech community

has never been a particularly good oracle (Apple and Microsoft are two prominent examples).

n3on_net• 11 years ago

"Now, why is it that some writers like to make CEOs look like gods? I wish there was a platform where you can rate writers based on their work. I'm pretty sure making them look like gods is very unhealthy for the community. Like doesn't these kind of articles piss you off?"

Why is this a bad thing? Becoming one like Dorsey or a CEO of huge company or simply a successful founder requires a certain mindset. A "growth" mindset at least, where you want to spend more hours for your passion (in this case business) than watching netfix. I think this mindset is pretty good. Working 18 hours a day doing your passion (And this is passion and not "work" for Dorsey or Musk) is much better than wasting your time away.

So there is nothing wrong with articles like this, showing only a normal day of people who like doing what they do.

desireco42• 11 years ago

Poorly?

I am surprised that boards allowed him to do this. Even if he manages to do some of the time, there is no way to do this well all of the time.

misframer• 11 years ago

For what it's worth, he's done this before.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/13/technology/dorsey_techonomy/

hayksaakian• 11 years ago

Isn't that interesting? Everything that's old is new again.

littletimmy• 11 years ago

Aren't both Twitter and Square not doing so well? Maybe he should focus on one, or learn to delegate better instead of working 18-hour days.

flylib2• 11 years ago

compared to what? they are two of the most successful tech companies built in the last decade

Avshalom• 11 years ago

They really aren't. Or at least if they are it's a terrifying commentary on tech companies because neither of them have ever actually made money.

tacos2• 11 years ago

Jack Dorsey cut a deal with Starbucks that's lost $100k every day for three years -- and gave up equity and a board seat for the privilege.

blackguardx2• 11 years ago

Yeah, but it came with a bunch of free advertising at the time. Square also thought Starbucks would help Square launch new customer-facing products because of Howard Schultz's board seat, but that never materialized.

I think it was a good deal at first, but definitely wasn't worth it over the long haul. Square was betting that Starbucks would help them in exchange for subsidizing their payment processing, but Starbucks pretty much just stuck to the contract they signed.

tacos2• 11 years ago

You can buy a lot of advertising for $100k a day. More importantly, you can stop buying that advertising when the product doesn't catch on. Dorsey pulled the product in 2014 and is still paying close to a Super Bowl spot every month to advertise it.

ng12• 11 years ago

Square also thought Starbucks would help Square launch new customer-facing products

It was obvious that this was never going to happen from the beginning. Square neutered Wallet for the Starbucks deal, turning it into a less compelling implementation of the existing QR-code system.

influx• 11 years ago

Jack actually walked out of the Twitter meeting where they were explaining the layoffs to the leftover employees. I'm sure he had an important meeting though.

givehimagun• 11 years ago

When you're working 18 hours days and burning out...he is mentally putting a cost/benefit to every single thing he does. I'm sure he decided he could generate more value doing something else (not a vague something else; a specific "I'm going to do this"). It's a coping mechanism and probably one of the few ways to stay productive in the face of insurmountable work.

Having put superhero efforts into a few roles, I can relate to that kind of behavior.

boomzilla• 11 years ago

FTA even the chairman of the board who, by definition, is Jack's direct boss had to taxicab him to have their weekly one on one. I am not sure I buy this, unless Jack is avoiding these meetings. WTF else is Jack doing? For God's sake, the other guy is not just some type of investment bank MBAs, he's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omid_Kordestani and was early employee and executive at both Netscape and Google.

I really think the future is bleak for both Twitter and Square.

randycupertino• 11 years ago

He has a pretty hot girlfriend. I follow her on Instagram and based on her Instagram posts it looks like she and Jack jet set around the world traveling pretty constantly. Lots of art galleries, fashion shows, film festivals type stuff.

hitekker• 11 years ago

To add to this, I recommend reading how Jack, or the person Jack told to write this email presented the layoff:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10379948

In the most charitable light, I believe Jack doesn't want to be seen as a villain. In a less charitable light.... I think most people can read between the lines.

Those can't or do not wish to see any ominous signs here, tend to be still working at the company. Willful ignorance of this kind is completely understandable, in my mind, since few wish to bite the hand that feeds them.

codingdave• 11 years ago

I think it is premature to judge his performance as of yet. If he makes both companies succeed, it will be worth a post-mortem to figure out what worked. If not, then there really isn't going to be much of interest to talk about.

I'd suggest everyone revisit this in a year.

martin_bech• 11 years ago

why dont both companies develop PRO features?

Imho Twitter should be offering a PRO feature for easier handling of accounts with large amounts of followers, with increased analytics, possibilities for promotion etc.

Square is already charging a fee on transactions (as it should) but imho it should also aim at beeing the number 1 provider of POS hardware to merchants, and again deliver a pro offering, with analytics of revenue, customerbase and much more.

harigov• 11 years ago

This article is as bland as it gets. How does Jack Dorsey run both Twitter and Square? By managing his time. Of course, we know he manages time, which is the biggest constraint in accomplishing the task of managing two companies. How exactly does he manage time? Said that, I believe the only reason this is in news is because some investors are worried that Jack Dorsey being a CEO of two companies will affect the company's performance, and this article is sharing Twitter/Square's view that Jack Dorsey isn't alone and that there are other CEO's who did that.

yeukhon• 11 years ago

I typically work 14-20 hours a day, as a DevOps. Sounds crazy, yeah. This is an illness. I am depressed, and also bored. I am compulsive to working and sitting in front of a computer. And finally, I am super micro-manage. I like things to be done in my way. Now, I can't get up early in the morning because the lack of sleep. I don't understand how he can be on time every day and manage to work 18 hours a day. This guy is just nut, to be honest. Rumor has it that he's trying to be Steve Jobs or someone similar. My bet is he's just very controlling.

hackaflocka• 11 years ago

Jack is a genius at starting things.

However, he has yet to prove that he's good at finishing them. Twitter seems unfinished. Square has stopped putting panic into PayPal.

altonzheng• 11 years ago

I read somewhere that the purpose of monks for society was to meditate outside of the demands and temptations of daily life, allowing them to make the wisest and clearheaded decisions. Jack Dorsey kind of reminds me of that.

mesozoic• 11 years ago

I would hesitate to invest in either of these companies they each have a CEO that isn't fully focused on only the company.

How Jack Dorsey Runs Both Twitter, Square

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