Jack Dorsey Reveals How He Runs Two Companies

Jack Dorsey tells Product Hunt how he runs two billion-dollar companies

By Lulu Chang December 24, 2015

Twitter Founder — Image used with permission by copyright holder

It’s hard to tell Jack Dorsey to stick to his day job — if you’re managing two multi-billion-dollar companies, it seems like all the hours of the day, month, and year, would really just start to blend together. When Dorsey, the man who co-founded both Twitter and Square, returned to the helm of the former while maintaining his position of power at the latter, it raised more than a few eyebrows in the tech and business sectors. But now, months later, it seems as though he’s given multitasking a whole new meaning, and garnered a new level of respect for this Jack of all trades.

Now, thanks to a question-and-answer session on Product Hunt, Dorsey has revealed just how he does the impossible, and how he manages “to keep from being overwhelmed.”

So what does an average day look like for the CEO of two different companies? By Dorsey’s own account, his day begins at 5 a.m., whereupon he meditates for half an hour. He then exercises for 20 minutes, makes coffee (shocking he has time to do even that) and then officially begins his workday (ostensibly around 6 a.m.). The first half of his day is spent at Twitter, and in the afternoon, he migrates to Square.

“I look to build a lot of consistent routine,” he revealed on Tuesday. “Same thing every day. Allows a steady state that enables me to be more effective when I do have to react to something out of band.” And to relax, he says, he turns to “Meditation, exercise, dinner with friends. Nothing too out of the ordinary.”

He manages to clock six hours of sleep every night, which isn’t quite as bad as you might expect for someone who seems to be the living and breathing definition of “overworked.”

Of course, the state of affairs at both Twitter and Square under Dorsey’s leadership haven’t been without issue. Square’s recent IPO was priced rather lower than price talks, and despite a nearly $6 billion valuation in 2014, its 2015 valuation was just half that at $2.9 billion. And of course, Twitter saw a string of layoffs and has yet to prove that its mettle with the rise in popularity of other social media platforms (led, of course, by Facebook).

Still, when it comes to Dorsey’s goals regarding Twitter, he says that what he cares about “is building daily utility … . Everything happening in the world is on Twitter, and I want to make sure everyone can participate!”

If you’re looking to channel your own inner Jack Dorsey, you may want to check out his favorite books, which include Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, and Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea.

So here’s a New Year’s resolution: Found (at least) two companies, run both, become Jack Dorsey.

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