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Invent ing Square
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At the time of Square’s
inception
, smartphones were just starting to
become popular. Surfing on the Internet with these new phones was
easy. New applications—or apps—were constantly being released to
make everyday life simpler. Both Jack and Jim had iPhones, and they
decided smartphones would be the key to their new invention. An ap-
plication for the smartphone would make it possible to pay for goods or
services in all sorts of situations, whether it be for merchants at an art fair
or everyday people selling items at a garage sale.
CREATING THE APPLICATION
The first version of Square was being developed for Apple products.
Apple had to approve all the applications included on the iPhone first,
so Jack and Jim sought out an interview with an executive at Apple. They
managed to meet with Scott Forstall, the senior vice president of develop-
ment, as well as a few other members of his team.
Make Connections: Name
Jack and Jim had a little bit of trouble coming up with a name for
what would eventually be known as Square. At first, Jack wanted
to give the application a name having to do with squirrels due to
the way squirrels gather nuts and bring them back home, similar
to how merchants would gather payments all in one place. When
he realized there was already a company with the name Squir-
rel Systems, he knew he couldn’t use the squirrel idea anymore. He opened
a dictionary and looked for names similar to squirrel, and found square. He
liked the word square because it could be used as a term to say, “We’re even,”
or, “We’re squared away,” when people were talking about money. The card
reader used to take payments is also shaped like a square.