(NEW YORK) Jack Dorsey shared a slew of anecdotes on Wednesday about founding Twitter, Square, and an intriguing set of extracurricular interests (some of the fashion variety) with Harper’s Bazaar editor Laura Brown at a Hearst Masterclass afternoon chat. We won’t attempt to cram Dorsey’s most delicious morsels into 140 characters, but here are a few takeaways worth sharing! Some are fresh, some bode interesting enough for a retelling, and all in all, the quippy banter between the interviewer and interviewee made for a parfait lunch break. Just imagine what life would be like if Dorsey had gone into denim production or very niche massage therapy in lieu of inventing the grand Twittersphere.
BY ALEXANDRA ILYASHOV
Firstly, the fashion tidbits…
1. Dorsey adores denim! Like, a lot. “I’ve always been in love with jeans: I’ve kept a journal since I was 14 years old. Denim has a natural journaling quality.”
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He places favorites on the dungaree front: “I particularly love Earnest Sewn.” So much, in fact, that Dorsey wanted to work with Earnest Sewn designer Scott Morrison, but Morrison only accepted figure drawers to design his jeans…
3. …So Dorsey took figure drawing classes. Guy doesn’t give up.
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He also took a design course in San Francisco as part of his denim design endeavors, and made two skirts in the process “because pants are harder to make than skirts”: a pencil skirt and an asymmetrical number. Next up would’ve been some trou, but he got busy with that whole Twitter thing. However, he does still have those two skirts. Brown’s retort: “You could be in Harper’s Bazaar, my friend!”
Now, for everything else…
5. Dorsey has one of those swooning, smitten, at-first-sight relationships with Gotham City (though he still doesn’t live here): “I’ve never felt that anywhere else: instantly at home. I fell in love with NYC.”6. Texting became big in ’05-’06, when bits of SMS brilliance could finally be swapped between Verizon and Cingular users (remember that?), and Dorsey fell in love with the technology. “It brought you into someone else’s world in real time!”
7. His mom owned a coffee shop, providing part of the impetus to invent the small-biz-friendly Square payment system.
8. His parents still can’t get verified on Twitter. C’mon, Jack!
9. Think your breakfast (or lack thereof) is strange? Try Dorsey’s recipe: two hardboiled eggs with soy sauce, and a side of berries. Every. Single. Day.
10. Dorsey probably gets more sleep than you do: six to seven hours per night. Could that be why the tech genius doesn’t get jetlag? Whatever the case, we’re jealous of both.
11. No, he doesn’t use a desk, so lots of pacing on the job ensues. Does this instill fear in his minions, Bazaar‘s Brown asked? “I hope not!” exclaimed Dorsey.
12. And from the man who invented Twitter, a few wise words on avoiding a fiasco on your own account (or your mag’s handle) like the Associated Press did earlier this week: “Having really strong passwords is really critical.” Indeed!
13. Besides denim design, the masseuse industry is another avenue Dorsey dabbled in, nearly at the expense of Twitter coming about. When Dorsey incurred back pains from too much programming, a pal recommended he get a massage. “I’m someone who decides not to just get a massage, but to take 1,000 hours of massage therapy,” getting certified in the process. His conceit for the rubdown biz was rather unique, however: “Briefly, I stupidly convinced myself to become a massage therapist…who just worked on computer programmers. We’d talk about code problems during the massage. It’d be like therapy!” That, Jack, is certainly an interesting idea. Glad Twitter (and now Square) worked out for you, and us, instead!
