
How Jack Dorsey Runs Both Twitter, Square - prostoalex
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/how-jack-dorsey-runs-both-twitter-square-1450713601-lMyQjAxMTA1OTI5MTUyMDE5Wj
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n0us
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
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.

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Briel
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.

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pinewurst
Why does one have 5 kids if there's little intention* to spend time with them?
Surely he's bright enough to grok birth control?

*I'm not a believer in "doesn't get", rather it's "doesn't want".

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kweinber
Maybe he was more interested in spending time with their mothers than with the
kids... Very few parents prioritize their kids before themselves even if many
feel that is what they one is supposed to do.

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kevindeasis
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?

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danpalmer
> 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
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).

~~~
deelowe
Apple was lauded for years by the tech world for many reasons: dominance in
audio/video/image production, the switch to a bsd based os, their dev kits,
etc...

Microsoft has suffered greatly from the tech world's hatred. And, one has to
wonder how different the mobile world would be if MS had built a better/more
open community around their brand.

The techies, developers, etc... are the early adopters. They are the ones that
are needed to keep your products fresh and relevant. Once they leave, the
company is left with the unwashed masses and the platform stagnates (e.g.
Microsoft).

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influx
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.

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boomzilla
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](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.

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randycupertino
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.

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desireco42
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.

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

[http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/13/technology/dorsey_techonomy/](http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/13/technology/dorsey_techonomy/)

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

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harigov
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.

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littletimmy
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.

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

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Avshalom
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.

~~~
flylib
in terms of returns for investors/founders/early employees, yes they are, and
twitter is undoubtedly in terms of reach/impact one of the most important tech
companies in the last decade, whether they actually sustain moving forward is
another question

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beagle3
So was pets.com at its time (and countless others). The time scale is
different, but ... if twitter crashes and burns soon because it can't make any
money, it will have left more impact on the history books, but ultimately will
be remembered as "a facebook like also-ran, that only had a whats-on-your-mind
line"

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yeukhon
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.

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tacos
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.

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blackguardx
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.

~~~
tacos
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.

~~~
blackguardx
I don't think anyone at Square thought it was a good deal for the last two
years.

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codingdave
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.

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martin_bech
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.

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altonzheng
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.

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hackaflocka
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.

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

