5 Moves That Elevated Jack Dorsey To An Icon Status

                               Written by Laura Montini

It's hard to overstate how unlikely Twitter creator Jack Dorsey's success as a tech founder seemed at one time.

The college dropout joined a company that went down in the dot-com bust in the late 1990s.

After living in a handful of cities, he returned to his St. Louis hometown feeling like a failure.

There, at age 26, he studied botanical illustration, according to a 2013 profile of Dorsey in the New Yorker.

 Finally, after a babysitting stint, Dorsey re-entered the tech world as a programmer.

So how did the man, who's been described as a polymath, become the CEO of credit card processing company Square?

The journey wasn't exactly a linear one, and it has led critics to believe that Dorsey's tendency to juggle a wide variety of interests has hurt his focus.

On the other hand, many admirers agree that it has led to a wild and prolific imagination.

Check out the timeline below to see how Dorsey's experiences have added up to two successful companies.

1.      Self Educate

At age 11, Jack Dorsey teaches himself to code in C. He creates a program that uses information from a police scanner to graphically represent the movements of vehicles. This is the start of Dorsey's fascination with translating the physical world into a virtual one.

2.     Keep Your Role Models Close

Dorsey applies to work as a developer at podcast startup Odeo. He doesn't care much for the company's concept, but he wants to work with its founder Evan Williams, who had sold his last business to Google. Williams, Dorsey, and two others from Odeo--Noah Glass and Biz Stone--eventually pivot and start Twitter

3.         Study Your Failures

Twitter's co-founders and board members agree that Dorsey is in over his head as the company's CEO, and they force him out. Other employees had said that he was a distracted manager. His co-founders would later say that his missteps at Twitter shaped Dorsey into a decisive and focused second-time CEO.

4.         Disclose Your Shortcomings

Post-Twitter, Dorsey has a hard time getting investors to take his new company, Square, seriously. In a bold attempt to boost his credibility, Dorsey pitches investors "140 Reasons Square Will Fail." The move proves his industry knowledge and eventually earns Square investments from Goldman Sachs, Starbucks, and many others.

5.         Remember Your Roots

Dorsey never strays far from Twitter. As an advisor, he pitches video-sharing service Vine to the company's CEO Dick Costolo. Twitter's $970 million Vine purchase is a response to Facebook's billion-dollar Instagram acquisition. With that, Dorsey shows everyone he still has major influence at his former company.

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