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> Dorsey’s story evolved over the years. He would tell Vanity Fair that the idea for Twitter went back to 1984, when he was only 8 years old. A “60 Minutes” seg
by pshin45 13y ago
> Dorsey’s story evolved over the years. He would tell Vanity Fair that the idea for Twitter went back to 1984, when he was only 8 years old. A “60 Minutes” segment reported that Dorsey founded Twitter because he “was fascinated by trains and maps” and how cities function. Later, he would explain that he first presented the idea, fully realized, on a playground in South Park. All along, Dorsey began casting himself in the image of Steve Jobs, calling himself an “editor,” as Jobs referred to himself, and adopting a singular uniform: a white buttoned-up Dior shirt, bluejeans and a black blazer.
I'm intrigued by how pathologically obsessed Jack Dorsey seems to be with Steve Jobs. The more I learn about both men, the more I'm convinced that Dorsey is simply trying to copy Jobs in everything he does, from the design of Square's hardware and software to even the way he acts and talks in public.
I used to admire Dorsey greatly (and I still do to an extent), but the more I learn about him, the more I feel like I've been duped and manipulated, somehow. Turns out that a lot of what he said about founding Twitter was a lie at worst and a gross exaggeration at best.
I won't complain too much as long as he's making awesome products, but I can't help but feel a bit uncomfortable knowing that this guy I used to admire is actually a sociopath. A highly functional one to be fair, but a sociopath nonetheless.
- tonystubblebine 13y agoAre you basing this on the Bilton story? I wouldn't put much stock in the hero/villain aspects of that.
- pshin45 13y agoI'd been following Dorsey's career for a while and had read up a lot on how he founded Twitter and Square. Then I read Steve Jobs' official biography, and I started to realize how much of what Dorsey does and says is influenced by Steve Jobs. This new Bilton story is basically just the straw that broke the camel's back. If you ever have time to check out this talk he gave at Stanford, it's a great example of how he takes bits and pieces of stuff that Steve Jobs was famous for and and makes it his own: http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2635 http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2635 E.g. using and emphasizing the words "beautiful", "amazing", and "great" over and over again (a staple of Apple keynotes), talking about focus (like "We want to do a thousand things but we end up only doing 1 or 2 of them"), talking about "telling a story about your company", I could go on but I'll stop here.