jack dorsey
episode 13
Broadcast date: 22 November 2017
The Moonshots Podcast studies another serial entrepreneur. We go to the heart of Silicon Valley to learn from Jack Dorsey. The CEO of Twitter and Square is one of the sharpest minds there. Let listen and learn.
DORSEY INTERVIEWS
How Twitter's Jack Dorsey Went From Inventor to Leader
Jack Dorsey - Full Interview with Q&A
Jack Dorsey Interview - Father of Twitter & Square (Part 1 of 2)
Jack Dorsey Interview - Father of Twitter & Square (Part 2)
Jack Dorsey- The Future Has Already Arrived
Jack Dorsey
TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's Tuesday, November 21, 2017. And we're at episode 13. I am your cohost Mike Parsons, and as usual, the man with the plan, the one and only Mr. Chad Owen, my cohost good evening in the deep South of America. Hi Mike, I am joining you from the wonderful city of new Orleans, ever so tropical humid, but it does have a certain, quiet about it.
What happening down in that part of the world. I'm here working on a documentary. And I've been here for about a week here for a few more days. And yeah it's been great. I used to live here and in the big, easy, and it's always fun being here and participating in all of the wonderful live music and eating lots of really awesome fried food.
So I can't complain. So it will be a soups and vegetarian living for the coming weeks, post new Orleans, I think. Huh? I definitely fast for sure. Okay. But before then you're going to be coming to Amsterdam where the two of us will be doing our first live broadcast. Are you pumped or what? I am really excited.
Mike, you've gotten some really interesting Dutch entrepreneurs that I'm very excited to not only meet, but hopefully, you know, learn from. Yeah, really excited. We've got one of the leading venture capitalists from Amsterdam. We have the editor of e-commerce magazine, which is sort of. The fast company of the Netherlands, they're going to be both alive on the show.
We're going to have a full audience, uh, participating live. It all feels very high tech. We're going to be broadcasting live all over the place, YouTube, you name it. And you know what? We might even be broadcasting on a tool called Periscope, which. Actually is a nice little segue into the guest or the innovator that we're going to decode on today's show.
So who's the man that we're going to learn from today. Chad. Someone that I really didn't know anything about. We are going to be hearing it from Jack Dorsey, who is one of the co-founders of Twitter and the founder of square and interesting to note, he is now running. Both of those companies. I don't know of any Silicon Valley entrepreneur that is CEO of, to like giant companies like Twitter and square.
Yeah. You might not have no, it's actually, it's pretty remarkable in that. Not only is he running two companies, the guy has things must run in pairs. He's actually quick college twice, and both companies are enormously influential Twitter. I just love because it's a social network, but it's organized, organized, primarily around ideas.
Rather than your connections. And so I think it's quite disruptive in, in doing that. And it has this enormous power. When you think about live news, what's happening now? I think it answers that question very well in square. It's a little bit more of a sleeper, obviously something that, that small businesses, uh, use, but it's enormously powerful, not much more than a credit card reader.
They lend money to merchants. Uh, they solve a lot of problems. And to me, that's the big theme about Jack is that he goes after very complex topics and just brings like a fire hose of simplicity to, to make, uh, what really feels for a lot of people magic when they use these products. And you acquire ride to, to be the CEO of not only one very disruptive company, but actually two, uh, Silicon Valley stalwarts have huge influence.
It's a very special opportunity to, to dig into the, the mental, the models and, and, and the ideas and the attitudes you'd have someone, uh, light Jack. And unlike you, Chad, he was a little bit of a mystery. To me, but has, I mean, researching him was, uh, a real delight. I found myself just discovering a lot of good thinking behind, behind Jack and that I found was just a pleasant surprise.
W what did you, when you were researching Jack, how did it reveal to you? Like, what did you note about, uh, Jack, once you started looking into him? I think the biggest standout was kind of. How he comes from the programming and technical side of things. I mean, very much in line with someone like bill Gates no less.
So like someone like Richard Branson, who I, I feel like is, uh, I mean, I'm, I'm doing them a disservice, but he's kind of the visionary and team building. Hmm. I think those are two things that make Richard Branson so successful. Whereas Jack Dorsey was there kind of, he has the idea for the product and then he goes and kind of builds the minimum viable product and to kind of get the company off, off the ground.
It was also just interesting. I didn't really know that Twitter had been around since 2006, um, in which he co-founded in, he ran for a couple of years, I think before, you know, before he transitioned out of the CEO position, there. And then he went on to co-found square in 2009, which I also didn't know had been around for that long.
And you know, so he's going on 10 plus years now in the Valley, and he's kind of made this return to be the CEO of both companies. And, you know, he took square public in 2015. So I don't even, I don't th I don't think of it as a sleeper anymore, actually. Uh, you know, Square's public Twitter. Isn't. I think, um, I would like to find more founders and CEOs in Silicon Valley like him, I think because he is a little against type.
He is in, I think, at what you just tapped into is that. Yeah, he kind of is incredibly talented in finding big problems and building the MVPs, but he has a surprising level of understanding of teamwork and collaboration, empathy, which might not traditionally go with that, that engineering mindset. And I think that's been recognized because one of the interesting facts about, uh, Jack Dorsey, he's also on the board of directors at Walt Disney, which is really remarkable for somebody who's.
Running two companies even has the time to do that as well. So I feel like we're ready and we're pumped and ready to jump into our first clip. So why don't you set up our first discovery into the world of Jack Dorsey? No, my, my parents were actually entrepreneurs. My father started a pizza restaurant when he was 19.
My mother owned a coffee store. Um, my father owned a medical device manufacturing company for a while still does actually. Um, but I never really wanted to be an entrepreneur. I never wanted to build a company, but. At one point you realize, well, if I want to continue to work in this work that I did want to see, and I want to continue to build this idea, the most efficient means of doing it is in this country, uh, corporation, the company.
And, uh, it, wasn't just about what I could do is about what other people could do with me and what I could do with them. Um, and then there's another, there's another learning, which is, well, what does it take for me to build a team? What I have to learn to build a team and what I have to learn to. Build to, um, and encourage other people to do this work that I'm so passionate about.
Are they passionate about it? Uh, and then what does it mean to have a company? What does it mean to be a CEO? I, I learned all the more because, um, it felt like the next step. To building something bigger and bigger and bigger and having more, more impact. So that's, that's been my approach and my mindset is what's, what's blocking me from the next step.
And, um, and that's what I love about the definition of an entrepreneur. Is you, you, um, You take significant risk in order to see what you want to see in the round, do you do whatever it takes to see what you see in the world? Usually it's financial risk, but it's also personal risk or reputational risk.
Uh, confidential is learning something new. Um, and, uh, and we just constantly are learning about how to build and how to scale. And it turns out that the best way to scale something broadly is not as an individual, but with a team of people. There's a lot to unpack there. Oh my gosh. I, you know what stuck out for me in that one, Chad was this very, uh, dry, but very sharp view.
Look the best vehicle in order to realize my dreams is a company and that's what I'll do. And then I build a company and I need to work out how people work in order to make the company great. And I thought it just so clear minded and everything is a vehicle, uh, into realizing his dreams. And that struck, that destruct me, like really clearly for you, Chad, like when you hear him just say, look, this is how I see the world.
What, what really stands out for you and his approach? I think again, because he comes from this kind of programming background and a lot of people would build something, you know, as a side project in their free time and not really do anything with it. And I think the difference with someone like Jack is.
He's not someone that just builds something and keeps it on his computer to himself and never shows it to anyone. He actually, I think realized very early on that if he wanted this, his ideas to get out into the world, he needed to, he needed to create a company and form a team to test out his ideas further.
Um, and so that, again, that's what you're saying is, you know, he realized that he needed to start companies in order to. To kind of fulfill his, his life goals and test out his ideas. Um, and so I think that's why he was able to come up. Co-create these two very interesting and quite different companies they're are very different, but what's really interesting is, and this takes us beautifully into the next clip is he has an approach.
He has a way of thinking about the products and the problems that they're solving that really are, there's so much for us to learn here. So I really want all the listeners to really listen to this, uh, next clip, because I think it really reveals how he brings these great products to life. So here's Jack Dorsey on thinking different.
I've learned so much from artists I've learned, uh, that you can see the world in a completely different way. In fact, you can make up how the world should look and then you can build it and you can paint it and you can actually. Share it with people and that actually inspires action, inspires people to move and inspires people to think in a very, very different way.
Uh, and I thought that was just an amazing, amazing idea. And if I could explore the world, if I could craft something and really learn how to build and how to, uh, build a vision of what I wanted to see in the world that could do. Amazing things. Uh, always. And, and that was the concept that I've realized over time is the most important thing for me to do is to see a picture of where I want to go see a picture of what I want to do in the world, and then figure out how to work backwards from that.
So in my instant reaction on hearing this chat is I was like, Well, what picture do I see of the world? And then I was like, Oh, like I realized that my own vision is probably not long-term enough. Like, I actually, this was quite a challenging question when I post it to myself, like, what is the legacy that I want to leave?
What is, what's the big thing that I want to give to the world? And I found that very, very challenging and actually forced me into realizing that I need to get even. More long-term about this, this view and use this technique of, you know, imagining a picture and then thinking about it on the biggest scale possible and then just going about and making it happen.
How did you, how did it, how did you respond when you heard this, this whole notion of just dreaming a picture and then seeing it come alive? I had a very similar reaction. I. I'm actually looking to see if I can create some time in my schedule. Is we near the end of the year to engage in this kind of thinking?
Cause I, I, to realize that maybe, you know, as we get to the end of the year, it's a good time to reflect and kind of reset and create that picture of what I want maybe next year to be like, and then work backwards and figure out what I need to do to make that happen. No, I totally agree. And what also starts to come to life is you hear in, even in just these first two clues, there is like zero question in my mind that this guy is going to get the job done.
Like you can hear, even though he's quite a thoughtful, calm, dry, uh, speaker, like the content is great, but he's not quite the bounce. For example, someone like I have. But the point for me is you can hear how resolute he is in bringing about all of this vision that he has. I mean, you're not left in it already.
You, you hear these two clips and you're like this guy's getting the job done. Right? Yeah. And the next clip that we have, I think really gets to the core of what he, as the CEO and co-founder of these companies is always asking himself. And I think that. That this next clip is a good distillation of, Oh, okay.
Well, what does someone like Jack Dorsey do all day? You know, he's running two companies. Like what in the world is he doing? And what I actually, I think this next clip really, uh, gives us a window into potentially what he's doing. Uh, each and every day, every company, every idea, everything that we do has to have some sort of purpose.
It has to have the answer to the question why, and this is the question that. I think it's one of the most important to ask. It's the easiest question to ask, which is why kids ask I get all the time. And it's the hardest question to answer, which is why adults get so frustrated by answering the question.
But if you keep asking why you keep getting to the essence of what's most important, and that is where truly great ideas where truly great companies come from is the constant asking of this very, very simple question, getting. Deeper and deeper and deeper, simpler, and simpler and simpler into a great question, but that's how you drive your, your purpose and your vision.
Uh, there's this great quote by, uh, bill Clinton, um, which really speaks to Square's purpose. And what we're trying to do in the world, which is work is about more than making a living as vital as that is. It's fundamental to human and dignity, to our sense of self-worth as useful independent. Free people.
So when I was starting square, I was really nervous. Like how can we attract people to work on payments? It is the least sexy thing in the world. Like no one wants to work on payments. No one wants to even deal with it. Um, it's not something that people wake up and say, Oh my God, I need to work on payments today.
I want to revolutionize payments. Like nobody says that, but. We can focus on what's really meaningful and payments, and it's not in the realization. It's not about payments. It's about the experience. It's about that end to end. It's about building something that allows more conversation to happen. It's about building something that fades away and disappears completely so people can focus on what's most meaningful to them.
I am totally digging what he just said about asking the question of why to unlock the purpose, but also something we've said so many times chat on the podcast. When you really are ask why and have a big emission, you can actually create a ton more products and services in order to get that job done.
And I think he just frames it so well. And I think it reminds all of us that. Discovering why your product or service discovering why your company exists? Why you, what positive change you're trying to bring about in the world? I think that's the greatest lesson in what Jack was saying. And I think he's providing a very good example for people that are running companies instead of, you know, filling your schedule up with meeting after meeting, after meeting.
I think that Jack is actually spending time in contemplating these why's and it's it's that activity in that thought process that I'm sure Jay helped generate the ideas for both Twitter and square and something we were we've tapped into is all idea of looking into this circle of why that the author Simon Sinek.
Created is, is a very powerful tool for anyone wanting to, to try this for their own. But the other thing that you see here is that he kind of admits the payments isn't sexy, but helping people participate in the economy is something really cool. So it's a totally different way to propose why they exist and why you should join square.
And I think that that's a great lesson as well. For those of us who are working in areas that might not be as sexy as say, working at a Nike or, um, working at Apple, don't underestimate that how appealing mission-driven companies can be of all shapes and sizes to potential employees and, and to customers.
And I think this is a timely reminder for us to ask those tough questions to go out there in the world and see what positive change that we can, we can contribute. Now. What's interesting. Chad is, if you have discovered your big, why I think the great challenge then becomes trying to see that. Through, you know what I mean?
Like, you know, the mission, but then it's actually the hard work, the grit, the perspiration, if you will, to get it done. And I think we can learn a lot from Jack on that as well. So why don't we just jump straight into this next clip? Which is Jack talking about his determination and his belief. And then let's see what we can learn from, from Jack here.
He is talking about pushing through and being absolutely determined to see your vision come true. When I believe in something, I fight like hell for it to when I believe in something, I fight like hell for it. And that has been my life. I've. Had a picture of what I wanted to see in the world. And I did whatever it took to make sure that it succeeded to make sure that it thrived, uh, in both company and in the case of both companies.
Yeah. So, so this is the first of a two-part series. Chad. And I love hearing him saying he fights like, hell, like you don't hear many CEOs of publicly listed companies saying like, I fight like hell for what I believe. Don't you find that like, refreshing that someone's that committed. Yeah. And I have a sneaking suspicion that it's what happened in 2009 or 2008 at Twitter.
When he, when he left as CEO, I I'm sure. You know, I think there were three founders of Twitter. Um, I think his dog had determination to make the product do well in kind of achieve his vision. It might've rubbed some people the wrong way, but like you said, you got to give it to them for. That dog had determination to get it done.
And there's a couple of points here that we should share with the listeners. Number one is in the end, they brought him back to run Twitter. And in the end of recent times in the last six months, Twitter has really turned a corner for the first time has really shown some healthy, positive signs. And I think that the downside probably of his.
Highly compelled, highly committed, highly disciplined approach is that it can be abrasive to others. And, um, You know, I think that, uh, he's definitely got square running beautifully and Twitter looks to be on a real turnaround, but you know what we really discovered in our research that this is not the first time he's fought like, hell.
And we've got a clip now, which actually is a very early career story where he's embodying his best lady Gaga, being relentless, being fearless when he wasn't this famous CEO, this is when he was just a kid. So let's have a listen to the second part of the story of Jack dosey fighting like hell for what he believes in and seeing his dreams come true.
There's a whole industry around this. That's called dispatch. Uh, so I should find the biggest dispatch firm in the world and I should go work there. Cause then I can see the entire city and I found one, it was called dispatch management services in New York city. They'd just gone public and I could not figure out how to contact them.
So I was by this time, pretty good with computers, very curious, a curious kid. And I figured out that they had a hole in their system. And I got into their system and I found their email address list for the entire corporation. And I got the email for the CEO and I got the email for the chairman and I sent them an email and said, I'm, uh, I'm Jack, you have a hole in your system.
Here's how to fix it. And by the way, I write dispatch software. And a week later I was hired and that was my resume. So I moved out to New York city. I dropped out of school for the first time I went to NYU. Uh, I started working on the system. I was loving it because I could see the entire city. Now we had taxi cabs, we had black cars, we had couriers, we had emergency, I could see swarms of taxi cabs going to the mat for an event.
It was just an amazing, amazing thing. And somewhere along the line, after that, I then dropped out of NYU. So I had, I'm a double dropout, which I don't think anyone else can claim, uh, in the, in the dropout league. Um, I dropped out at NYU. I went to San Francisco and we started a web based dispatch firm. Uh, the company was a complete and utter failure, but the one thing that I did realize during my time there was, I had all these verticals, I could actually see the city in a very, very interesting way, but I was missing one key element.
And those were the people. Where were the people, what were they doing? And where were they? What are they thinking? And that's where the idea for Twitter came from. So I love that. Don't you? Yeah. I mean, I had no idea where the idea for Twitter came from, interestingly that it came from an almost Uber like, experience that he had.
In the early two thousands. Right? Doesn't it sound like the idea that he should have, or could have come up with is Uber, but he can't be, and instead came up with the idea for Twitter. Yeah. That's, it's so neat. And, but it's also like the guy has this history of being really fascinated in dispatch software and for such a cool cat.
It's so unusual that he's obsessed with a dispatch software. I mean, it's is like, what is that about? But did you hear him? He's like wanted to work for the biggest company in dispatch software. Couldn't find their information hacked in, send them an email and off I went and you can see how all those things that we talked about.
Like fighting like hell, seeing a picture and wanting to make it come alive. You can almost hear inevitability and shores with the benefit of hindsight, but there seems to be this inevitability. And I think we notice this with a lot of the entrepreneurs that we decode. And I think the source of this is that they're following, pursuing their dreams.
They're not just doing a job and it's certainly not for the money it's for the dream. And I think that's the elixir, the gold that powers all of this. Don't you. Um, I think it's also your ability to, to persevere through the things that fail because Jack could have stopped after this failed. Well, for one, he could have continued working at that dispatch company indefinitely, building their products, probably on a waterfall, uh, you know, cycle and.
But then he's like, you know, you know what, I, I've got a better idea. I'm going to try and start a company. But then after that company failed, he didn't just stop there. He picked himself back up and, and, and didn't, you know, started in another company. And that that's a lot of what I think Richard Branson was talking about.
And the clips that we listened to in the previous episode, episode 12, He probably Richard. So Richard Branson probably had as many failures as successes. It's just, he kept going at the end of it. Well, yes. Yes. And I think there's another big learning here for all of us, which is he's very ready just to say, you know what?
Dispatch software in San Francisco, total failure. But I did learn that there was something missing, which was the people, which was the inspiration for Twitter. And I love this because you know, he's so ready to admit failure, but what we can see that when you're on the quest to do something. Amazing.
Something really remarkable along the way. You can maybe find learnings that inspire the truly great product in it. And it serves to this truth that most, if not all successful startups, they end up succeeding in a product or service that they didn't originally start with. So all those little pivots along the way, sometimes big jumps, catapults, even.
Those are the things that take you from good to great. And I think that really teaches us just, you know, be ready to admit failure, but do so with this one question, what did I learn and what can I do next? And I think my biggest takeaway from these clips we've heard in the first half of this show, um, and kind of combining them all into one is.
You know, Jack's relentless, uh, fighting like, hell for asking the why question of, why am I here? Why am I starting this company? Why am I doing this work? And you know, and how am I benefiting the consumer, the customer. Et cetera. I think that's what I'm taking away from these, these first few clips. Yeah.
And we've so stole these clips from a number of great talks and interviews, and we'll have all of those on our site, moonshots.io, where we have a complete show notes and links for further reading and watching and discovery. Um, you know, we have a ton there, so please go and check out moonshots.io. And we in fact sent out our first monthly newsletter, um, earlier this week.
So, uh, the, the marketing machine, the information machine, the ministry of information is working well. And which is great because obviously, um, we're going to be on tour this week in Amsterdam. So if you do want to find out where we're going to be and what we're up to head onto moonshots.io and check out little newsletter that we send out once a month.
Okay. Time for the second half chat. Are you ready for some mental models? Are you ready for some invention and innovation? Yeah. I think clips that you found for Jack, I think just have some really great stories. And so I won't, why don't you tee up this next one? I think it's, it's the thing that listeners are really going to get something out of it.
Yeah, so, okay. Okay. This is really cool because this next clip is going to, uh, we actually don't get this a lot where we can go to the very moment, the very aha moment for an incredible product, but we're very fortunate here. We're going to listen to Jack talking about, um, how they created square, which is their payments solution.
And he's going to talk about a huge. Learning that they had on how to discover the magic. And it is so important that you tune into this because what's happening here is they start off doing what everyone does, which is trying to sell their customer something. Rather than listening, learning, and understanding what they need.
And here, he's going to reveal proof that you need to listen. You need to learn from your customers. So let's have a listen to Jack Dorsey and him revealing for square payments. The aha moment we went down and there was a flower cart under my apartment, and we noticed she wasn't accepting credit cards.
And we asked her, do you want to accept credit cards? And she said, no, it's too complicated and they're too expensive. And I hate them. And, uh, we said, okay. So we came back the next day, very persistent. And we said about today, like we have, uh, we did this, we made it work a little bit differently. What you want to accept credit cards today?
And she said, no, I try to accept credit cards. I went to a bank, they denied me. No, I just don't. I don't want to mess with it. So leave me alone. We went back up next day, we went down, asked her if she want to accept credit cards. And she again said, no, stop asking me the question. Do you want some flowers?
And, um, we went back to forth and this time we just watched, we just watched what she was doing and we, um, We saw a guy come up and he wanted to buy some flowers and he, uh, he handed over a credit card and she said, I don't really accept that, but there's an ATM around the corner and you can go get some cash.
And we watched him walk away and he went around the corner and we waited for five minutes and then we waited for 10 minutes and then 15 minutes. Guy never came back. And then my co-founder Jim asked a question, do you want to make the sale? And she said, yeah, I will accept credit cards now. Um, and, and that was the big insight for us.
It wasn't that we were building a credit card machine. It was that we were enabling someone to participate in the economy in the first place and to be able to make the sale. And when we changed the mindset about. Helping someone make the sale instead of accepting credit cards, suddenly we could do so many different things to help them make the sale, the point of sale to organize our information square capital, um, to give them a loan of $6,000 to help make more sales.
Like then the universe was so much bigger than we originally thought it was. So that was probably the biggest surprise. For us. And, and the biggest joy in the business was just those moments when we realized it. Wasn't just this mechanical thing that, uh, had so much more potential. Yeah. Just listen and learn, understand your customers this much for us in this clip.
I think, you know, obviously understanding where your customer is at is a big win here, but I want to emphasize another point here, which is. Once you, once you unlock the first problem. To solve what often very quickly happens because you're demonstrating that empathy and understanding lots more opportunities to create products and services come to life because you're in a sort of state of flow.
And this is just what happens when you have an empathy for the customer. You seem to, as the whole picture is revealed to you and you can spend months, if not years, building products and services that truly help your customer. And that's. I F I, Chad, I think that was so powerful in that story. Yeah. I, I think that, you know, what I kind of took away from it was the importance of going on a customer Safari.
That's kind of what I, what I call it, uh, in observing your customer and clients behaviors, even before you kind of introduce your potential solution, because ultimately they just learned that what was most important to this flower shop owner was making the sale. It w it wasn't about credit cards. It was just, she wanted to be able to.
You know, make that transaction. And so that is what unlocked the multiple opportunities and other kinds of business units and in lines of business that they could, could run within square. And so what I'm taking away from it is the importance of that customer development process, that back and forth, the, both the observation and the testing in front of customers, you know, like they weren't going to leave until they got.
Until they got that owner to accept credit cards with their, with their square reader. Exactly. Yeah. It's such a powerful lesson, a lesson, because it's so simple going on, as you said, the customer Safari it's so few people do it, right Chad, like how many times do you meet a work with products and go, Oh my gosh, this does not work at all.
And they've simply not spent enough time with customers. Yeah. Yeah. That, that story I think is just a really great kind of Genesis story for a really interesting company, because it sounds like very early on, they recognized these other opportunities even beyond their simple square reader. And this next clip is, is Jack talking about why he feels a square has been so successful in that, you know, while they're just a simple payments company they're focusing on what's.
Working in there they're remaining this company that's focused on their strengths. You have to focus on your strengths and our strength. There was cohesiveness. Um, you, we're not just building a register. We're not just building payments. We're not just building a loan product. We're not just building payroll, all of them work together and we've taken this approach of what is the most critical need for a seller and just.
Go after them line by line, by line and make them work so that there are no seams. And you know, you don't have to think about connecting them at all. So you download one up and you're done. I imagined Jack, like, not just with this flower, uh, this flower cart owner, but with every customer, he comes into contact with being like.
And what else can we do? And what else can we do? And what else can we do? You know, like he's not just simply stopping it at taking credit cards and you, you, you, as we've said, I think a lot of this determination is obviously coming from he's realizing his dreams. Uh, you start to get this, this fortitude that you can sense that he has about.
Getting the job done for his customers, but what's quite an ironic if you will, or a twist on this is you, you might expect that he wants to have products that make this big, loud, noisy statement, but it's actually that's, you couldn't be further from the truth. What Jack's all about is creating products that are so good.
You don't even know that they're there. They make all this friction go away. So, so this next clip is him drawing an analogy between the golden gate bridge in San Francisco and how he develops his products and his services, and stay stick with Jack here. He he's, he's drawn a big analogy with, with the bridge in San Francisco.
But there's a lot for us in this. So let's have a listen to Jack Dorsey talking about creating products that are invisible, not thinking about, Oh, it's the bridge gonna fall down? Cause they know bridge is probably not going to fall down. There's going to be some people who are thinking of the bridge is going to fall down and like, why do I have to do this?
And it's going to be an earthquake and you know, the whole thing. But, uh, they were actually, uh, they're actually protected from that. So. The bridges goal, the bridges function is to get people from point a to point B and most of the commuters that go on this bridge every single day, all they're thinking about is point B.
That's thinking about what's on the other side. Like, what do I have to do at work today? What's for dinner tonight? Like what, what am I, what are my kids going to say tonight? Like, you know, where am I going? Uh, you know, I'm going to this concert. I can't wait to get there thinking about point B. And they're thinking about point B so much that the bridge completely disappears.
They don't even notice it. Right. It served its function. It served its utility. It's a utility that does it so well. It's so intuitive that it disappears completely. And that is magical. That's a product. Those are products that I want to build things that are so intuitive and such a part of people's lives that they disappear when you're using them.
Right. And that's how we think about square. That's how we think about Twitter. People come to Twitter for a very simple reason. It's another a to B. They want to get some information from someone or they want to communicate and share with the world with square. They want to move money from one place to another.
They want to build their business. Yeah. Invisible product. Huh? This is so nice because. He's really talking about getting the job done in, in this seamless, delightful, invisible way. And it reminds me a lot of something I've talked about before Chad, which is, you know, how Uber makes payment invisible. You just don't have to get out your credit card anymore.
This is kind of how he's thinking about it. Right. Um, I mean to me, that is truly magical. When you can make a product invisible, it's like a great athlete makes the sport look so easy. I just can't get over how hard that would be. Like. I mean, he's setting a very high bar for, for the products that he's building at, at Twitter and at square.
I think part of it, I mean, thinking out loud here is just avoiding scope creep. You know, we tend to. Throw more and more functions and features into our products and services until they get so over overburdened, you know, uh, with bells and whistles that it's more friction than delight. I mean, w w what would you, what would be the mantras you would use to create invisible products?
I think simplicity is, is one goal that you can strive for. I think the word he used, I think that describes it well is utility. If, if what you're doing and what you're building becomes just another utility for, for your customer, then it disappears into the background. You know? So this kind of feature, I think that Uber is envisioning where.
There's just these fleet of autonomous cars, you know, you just step outside your front door and there's a car there, you know, waiting for you to take you where you need to go. And you don't even think about anything because it already knows your schedule because, you know, it's, you know, th th that's the kind of invisibility, I think that, uh, that I think of when I hear, you know, an entrepreneur describe, uh, the way they envision products like that, it reminds me of, do you remember when we had that clip on the Elon Musk show?
Which is episode zero, zero one. If I remember correctly, um, do you remember, he was talking about how your car would, um, be parked out front, uh, when you need to get to work, it would drop you at work and then it would go and be a shared vehicle driving autonomously around for the next, you know, 10 hours.
And then it would be magically back at the time that your last meeting finished. So you could jump back in the car, go home, and then it would go and drive all night as an Uber. And then be back in the morning to pick you up, to take you to work. It's, it's almost like Jack and Ilan have this similar vision of, you know, really radical in visibility to the products and services they create that also have huge impact.
And you can't understate the impact that Twitter has had on a global scale, you know, politically and culturally, um, It's kind of a taste-maker and even, you know, earth shaker in a way, especially in things like the Arab spring. And you could even say, you know, the 2016 election and the United States, um, So in, in some ways it's invisible, but yet its impact is immense.
Yes. And maybe there's that that's, that's the thing that I can't like kind of it's the paradox that I can't quite hold together in my mind. It's almost like the lesson for us to learn is that the more utility and invisibility in your product, the more scale and opportunity that it has to be enormous. I, I think you, I think you, you got it there.
Yeah. And, and what's powerful is that you see that he has this devotion to understanding customer needs. He wants to make his product invisible. So it's very humble. So, uh, it's very about, uh, serving of others, but he is able to align that so nicely with great determination and vision. Um, and what's what's so, uh, I think what I think the implications of that is that Twitter and square will be around for a long time.
I mean, they're, they've become permanent members of the way in which assets and tools in the way in which we live. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I absolutely think so. And, and it makes you think just how far they can go respectively with square and Twitter, given that. So customer focused and so driven to make that happen.
You know, he's got many years in front of him. I mean, the guy is just around 40 years of age. Um, I mean, it's very exciting to think about a future to come for both companies and the impact and the things that we can delight in using, because he's got this incredible gutsy, relentless, fearless determination, but also this great, uh, mental model of creating invisible products searching for the truth.
In, in working with customers, it sets up a great story of what's to come. I'm curious, Mike, which, which company do you think Jack will decide to stick with longer? Because I don't know that he could remain CEO of both Twitter and square for too long, you know, maybe three or five more years, but I don't know.
I'm curious, which do you think would or could, or excuse me, should have his focus. Uh, if, if he had to choose, I think, uh, square has a much clearer path. They have big strategic investors they're on the right path. Um, they have more than created a beachhead into the world of payments. Uh, they just recently announced supporting Bitcoin, uh, like they're doing all the right things.
Um, Twitter on the other hand is, has had a very chaotic leadership run and he's just sorting it out. I think it also has much more of a threat to its business model than that of square. So I think the question comes down to, uh, you know, well, I think Twitter needs him more, but I think you're right. Maybe square is kind of the opportunity, the better opportunity for him.
So, yeah, I'm very curious to see. Yeah. You know, where he spends most of his time and where he's able to. I think he could have, I think he's a good enough team builder where he could put together a team at square that could really make that successful. And he could, you know, remain on the board and as a co-founder, but I think you're right.
I think Twitter needs his leadership, you know, to, to really. It's really set it back on track. And I had misspoken earlier, Twitter IPO two years before square, but, uh, I guess I was just thinking of, you know, Twitter stock performance. Cause I think it's below its IPO levels at this point. So it's kind of been floundering for a little while.
I think, I think that looking at the facts in front of us, the fact that. He created Twitter and he's deep, lifelong obsession with dispatch. Software would tell you that he probably cannot afford to see Twitter go through another challenging Valley of darkness. And, you know, if forced to it, maybe if he has a family, maybe if he reevaluates his time, uh, I would, I would actually have a guest that he'd probably lean into Twitter fall back to a chairman role on, on.
On square, but you know, we are, you know, we're hypothesizing. I mean, he seems to be very capable of doing both at the moment. So, uh, it could be many a year before, before he contemplates, uh, that, but, um, we do have one more clip, uh, that you found Chad, and I think this is a spectacular way to end the show.
So why don't you set up this? There's a last and final Jack Dorsey clip. Yeah, I, I just wanted to kind of give him the last word. I just, this is why I asked you, like, kind of what you, you, you thought, um, think we can go out with this last musing from Jack on kind of what he feels, how he feels about his legacy and the work that he has yet to complete in his time as an entrepreneur is life's greatest invention.
We are all going to die and that forces a bunch of considerations. Around how we prioritize our work, but more importantly, um, it puts this, um, this constraint upon us that if we want to leave something that actually has impact, we need to make sure that we're leaving something that isn't dependent upon us, um, living and isn't dependent upon us, upon us being there in the first place.
So that's what I aspire to every single day. Death is life's greatest invention. I'm sure that he heard that somewhere. But yeah, hearing that from him, um, was really interesting. Just the thought that a company like Twitter and square can and should live beyond him, uh, at the helm. And I really think that will be the test of whether both companies, you know, if he decides to move on from both can survive.
Without it, without him leading the company. And I, Twitter is an example of, well, no, it couldn't. And that's why they brought him back to be CEO. Yeah. I, I, he, he delivers things in such a dry manner. Right? He sounds so sad. Oh my gosh. I, I do agree. I mean, this almost ties back to what we, how we both reacted to that second clip where.
When he sees this longterm vision of the positive change he wants to create in the world. And we both had this same reaction of like, Oh, geez, I'm not really thinking that far out. And he obviously is. And so it's this great sense of maturity. A thoughtfulness that puts him in such good stead. I mean, I wonder if this guy even breaks a sweat in a crisis.
I mean, it just seems like he is like cool hand Luke, like every single day, 24 seven. Yeah. Yeah. I'm really excited now actually, to follow both. Twitter and square and the how he runs both, both companies. I, I wasn't really up on either of them, but knowing that Jack is running both companies at the same time, I'm definitely going to be following them in the, in the coming months and years.
No, absolutely. And I think I was probably a little bit skeptical of his ability to run both companies, but having gone through this show and the research. Hi, I'm Chad I'm. So this guy is full of passion. Like when you hear him, he's going to fight like, hell, but he's really a servant to his customers. And he has this idea of this vision, his picture.
He wants to paint. He's already thinking about legacy. I feel that he's one of the most well-rounded innovators that we have spent time learning from this entire show. You know, often they have, they lean more to either behavioral or functional skills. He is one of the most comprehensive well-balanced leaders.
I think we've, we've actually investigated. What do you think? Yeah. Yeah. I had a lot of fun watching the interviews and pulling these clips. I just can't wait to see what he does, uh, at Twitter and square. Yeah. It's really exciting. And it's not the only exciting thing happening in the future because literally, uh, this Friday, uh, we will be broadcasting.
Live from Amsterdam, which is pretty damning siding. Where are you on the like, Oh my gosh, Mike, how are we going to do this versus the account way? Like where I, you chat on the, on the, yeah, I'm kind of split in the middle. Part of me is like, uh, I don't know if we can pull it off technically, but I'm really excited for the guests that we have lined up and just, you know, the energy and atmosphere I think of, of trying something new.
Uh, you know, I've never done a live podcast before and, you know, I'm excited to see how it works out. So hopefully this will probably be in the past for most of you listening, but be sure to check out episode 14 and you know, the next episode, which will be our alive from Amsterdam episode. Um, speaking of future episodes, Mike, who have you been thinking about profiling next on the show?
I have just say so we've done now quite a good run on this serial entrepreneurs. Are you feeling like there's any most serial entrepreneurs, uh, at the moment that you feel deserve our attention? Um, yeah, I'm not sure in the serial entrepreneur category, we have some, you know, founders who are still running big companies on our list.
We also have some interesting investors that I think might be able to bring us an interesting perspective and then just some really solid, uh, operators, you know, people like Sheryl, Sandberg and others on our list. I'm, I'm not, I don't. I don't know. I, I don't know where, uh, where we should go next. Yeah. I totally think, you know, bill Gates, Richard Branson, and now Jack, I think, you know, we've, we've definitely done our serial entrepreneur, you know, series a good going over I'm I'm with you.
I feel like. In terms of investors. We've got obviously Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. I feel both guys deserve their own show. Um, I feel like Paul Graham from Y Combinator is like just a force is a very interesting outlier. Chris Sacca, who used to be a Google, uh, What to like about him? I feel you're, I think you're onto something.
I think an investor series, like brilliant investors. What can we learn from them? Serial investors? Um, I think that could be the perfect way to follow up from, from our live show in Amsterdam. What do you think. All right. Yeah. We'll have to, we'll have to pick an investor. And, uh, I, I really enjoy some of the things that Chris sock has to say.
I think he's been able to steer some, uh, startups in the right direction. So maybe we'll, we'll pencil him in for, for next time. Love it. I love it. He's a bit of a, as a personality. Who's a bit of a mystery to me, but he's thinking I love. So I'm up for that. And, uh, you can find all the listings can find all of our show notes.
On moonshots.io. Um, check us out, both there and on Facebook for our live broadcast. This coming Friday. That will be Friday, November 24th at 3:00 PM. Amsterdam time, which is UTC plus one. So basically speaking if you're in Europe, it's in the afternoon on Friday, if you're in the us, it's in the morning.
And if you're with my fellow countrymen in Australia, it's particularly late on Saturday night. Slash morning. Um, so you would imagine if you stayed up really late on a Friday night, it's about one or two o'clock in the morning, uh, early Saturday morning in Australia, but it's so going to be fun. Lots of great guests live audience broadcasting all over the internet.
I'm pretty fired up. Any last thoughts that you're going to take with you from Jack as you. Go into a whole week of travel and adventure. Are you going to be fighting like hell for what you believe in? Are you going to be customer obsessed? What are you, what are you taking away from Jack? I'm going to contemplate the Y that and just continue to doggedly pursue, uh, my creative pursuits, both here in the great state of Louisiana in Amsterdam and beyond.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, all right. My friend, once again, another great show. Thank you. Thank you to our listeners. Uh, that's it from me wrapping up and we'll see you on moonshots. Yeah.