Jack Dorsey Joins Disney’s Board Of Directors

http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/23/jack-dorsey-joins-disney/

by dko • 13 years ago

88 44 13 years ago

techcrunch.com

mkrecny6• 13 years ago

And the mimicry of Steve Jobs continues.

otoburb• 13 years ago

Does Dorsey also scream at his subordinates? I thought he had a calmer persona.

mkrecny6• 13 years ago

I'm not sure how he treats his 'subordinates'. I recently read 'Hatching Twitter', in which he's portrayed as a ruthless manipulator.

onedev2• 13 years ago

I feel like people who say this do it to downplay his accomplishments. It's a very negative tone.

mkrecny6• 13 years ago

Yes, it's a negative tone. My feeling is that he unjustifiably self-identifies with Jobs. As mentioned, I've recently read 'Hatching Twitter' and it paints him in an unseemly light.

I don't see how the comment is downplaying his accomplishments though.

alphadog• 13 years ago

That's a pretty cushy salary - isn't? Anyone know how much a new Disney board member gets paid?

mikeyouse• 13 years ago

As of 2011, about $250k/year.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1001039/0001193125120...

But they were in the process of increasing it by about $30k, so probably closer to $300k/year now.

bhaile• 13 years ago

http://cdn.media.ir.thewaltdisneycompany.com/2013/annual/pro...

Sheryl Sandberg made $274K in 2012 being on the board at Disney as an example.

bluthru• 13 years ago

Is there a cushier job than being a board member?

nostrademons• 13 years ago

Being on the board of a publicly-traded company also opens yourself up to a lot of personal liability, as you're legally bound to act in the best interest of shareholders. I personally would not want the job; if I were wealthy & accomplished enough to be offered a board membership, I'd much rather have a quiet life out of the public eye than wrestle with concerns of a multi-billion-dollar enterprise that needs to satisfy many different constituencies. Being on the board of a non-profit, however, can be pretty cool. You usually don't get a salary for that though.

loceng• 13 years ago

Don't imagine he cares about the money.

sown5• 13 years ago

Kudos to him.

I'm not bitter or upset but I'm thinking: Why can't I think of stuff people want? Maybe I don't know how to listen? He's a human, just like me, but I can't do anything. Maybe asking this question is a first signal of failure, or at least that I'm of a wrong mindset, that separates a good entrepreneur, whom wouldn't ask that question and just go do it, from people like me.

If his WP page is accurate, it's not like he didn't have startups that didn't work out but he still made it.

bobbles• 13 years ago

Well if you think back to the release of twitter the overwhelming response on most tech sites was that it was stupid/useless/waste of time, etc...

("Why would I want SMS restrictions on the web?!")

Maybe you need to get out of the tech-site bubble :)

sown5• 13 years ago

Maybe you need to get out of the tech-site bubble :)

Yeah, maybe. i don't use social stuff too much, but I'm mostly experienced with enterprise stuff. Not sure how to talk to them, too, or even what their problems really are.

Edmond• 13 years ago

Count me amongst those who shared that impression...my impression hasn't changed much! It obviously isn't completely stupid or completely useless but its utility is still shockingly low especially when you consider its stock market success.

I am on twitter mainly as a way to promote my company and connect with prospective people, but otherwise the utility of twitter still strikes me as rather low.

It is a good medium for one-to-many (aka broadcast) communication but there aren't enough interesting people in the world to make that a viable option. Not to mention once you start to follow more than 20 people your stream becomes a fire-hose that is not really consumable.

I guess now that it is a public company we'll have to wait and see if it can turn the amount of profit that matches its valuation.

Also stupid/useless and success are not necessarily mutually exclusive, we are talking about humans after all :)

mkrecny6• 13 years ago

Maybe narrow your scope. Dorsey created two services that millions of people want. Could you create something that only thousands or even hundreds of people would want (and pay money for)?

sown5• 13 years ago

That certainly seems doable. Thanks for this tip.

dsl2• 13 years ago

Square has about 40,000 active customers. They "have a plan" to be profitable by 2015.

"Millions" of people don't want Square, a handful of underserved merchants do, and not being profitable means their customers aren't "paying" for the service yet.

If you hit it out of the park with a Twitter or Facebook or Google, you can get enough investors on board to make your next venture seem successful regardless of actual traction.

I'm not saying Square isn't awesome, you've just had too much kool-aid.

jackhammer2022• 13 years ago

Do not fall for the Survivorship Bias: http://youarenotsosmart.com/2013/05/23/survivorship-bias/

sown5• 13 years ago

good point and taken. thank you.

jes5199• 13 years ago

It's never been clear to me to what degree Jack is coming up with good ideas versus being very fast at adopting other people's good ideas. But I guess the distinction may not really matter- most of us don't even recognize good ideas until success is already certain.

trafnar• 13 years ago

It's not about good ideas, its about their implementation's good design.

sown5• 13 years ago

It's not about good ideas, its about their implementation's good design.

That's true, and I've heard it often. But I have to have some idea to do, and the skill or smarts to pull it off.

wellboy• 13 years ago

Would you say that you have tried coming up with ideas yourself really hard, have given it your all for months or years?

Because that's what Jack did and what all other oh-so-famous entrepreneurs did to become successful.

One doesn't have that idea and then it just works out "overnight". It's a long long process over several years of unpaid hard work.

So don't wonder why can't you just have that billion dollar idea. You've probably had 5 billion dollar ideas already, but then someone else actually did it. So you need to do them.

amckenna• 13 years ago

It's worth checking out the NYT piece on the rise of Twitter and the role Dorsey played. His rise to fame was a tumultuous one and while he is no doubt a talented individual he is credited with more than he actually created. It will be interesting to see how his influence develops and shapes Disney's future.

"Ideas rarely, if ever, come from the mind of a single person, but those who go down in lore as visionaries take credit for them as if they do. Dorsey seemed to understand this intrinsically, too.”

"By this point, many Twitter investors believed what Dorsey had been telling the media for the past two years. More important, they knew the public did. He could be an effective public face of Twitter as Costolo managed the operations. The board was grateful for the $25 million that Costolo arranged in deals with Microsoft and Google, and he had a good rapport with Twitter employees. A pact between all of the investors was formed. By late September, Costolo was told that he had been picked to be interim C.E.O. Williams was out. Dorsey was back in."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/magazine/all-is-fair-in-lo...

pjbrunet3• 13 years ago

Noah Glass deserves all the credit, IMO.

http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-cofounder-noah-glass-...

"Originally, (Twitter) was all running on my laptop on my desk. An IBM Thinkpad. Using a Verizon wireless card. It was right there on my desk. I could just pick it up and take it anywhere in the world. That was a really fun time."

belluchan• 13 years ago

Calling him a founder seems to be a stretch based on Twitter's official comments on the matter. He wrote the code. He was an engineer employed by Odeo. That doesn't mean he's a "founder." I don't know which side is true, but my sense is that calling him a "founder" is tech linkbait.

lowglow• 13 years ago

I personally find a lot of inspiration visiting the Disney Family Museum here in SF (http://www.waltdisney.org/). Whenever I feel like I need a bit of a kick to see how a man can go against all odds to realize his dreams, I visit the museum. It may be dull to some, but the quotes alone make it worthwhile.

I find I might owe to Disney and his product some of the push I have. It may pay off for some of you to take a visit.

david_otoole• 13 years ago

Please insist on a better script for the next Tron movie.

Jack Dorsey Joins Disney’s Board Of Directors

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