Chi ldhood Fasc inat ion
11
the Innovator of the Year Award in 2012. In an article released by
Forbes
that same year, he was compared to another great entrepreneur: Steve
Jobs, the founder of Apple. According to the article, Jack “is nerdier than
Steve Jobs,” even if his “ego seems in check.”
When Jack found out about this comparison, he was insulted. “I think the
reference was because I am a programmer, so if that is the nerdy way, then
guilty: I am a nerd,” he explained. Programmers write pieces of code that
tell a computer how to behave. Because Jack did all of the programming
himself, Twitter expanded rapidly.
The man who created the
revolutionary
tools known as Twitter and
Square did not have a typical childhood. He overcame many trials to be-
come the successful entrepreneur he is today. Jack was not the best com-
municator in his youth, so communicating via text rather than with his voice
came naturally to him. As an adult, he used his childhood challenges to
help him find ways to help people around the world interact with each other
in simpler, clearer ways than ever before.
EARLY YEARS
Jack Dorsey was born on November 19, 1976, in St. Louis, Missouri. As a
young boy, he found it very hard to communicate with his family and fel-
low students due to a speech
impediment
. “I could pronounce [words]
Make Connections: Origin of Twitter
Although the word Twitter is now most well known as a social
media website, it is also a word that means “a short burst of incon-
sequential information,” and “chirps from birds.” This explains why
the logo for Twitter is a songbird, and the name of a Twitter update
is a “tweet.”