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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.”