Twitter creator and native St. Louisan Jack Dorsey's mobile device credit card processing startup Square Inc. has raised a $27.5 million Series B round of venture financing led by Menlo Park, Calif.-based Sequoia Capital.
Dorsey grew in St. Louis, Missouri, and by age 14, he had become interested in dispatch routing. Some of the open source software he created in the area of dispatch logistics is still used by taxicab companies. He went to high school at Bishop DuBourg High School, and attended Missouri University of Science and Technology before subsequently transferring to New York University, where he first conceived the idea for Twitter. While working on dispatching as a programmer he later moved to California.
Dorsey, Stone and Williams co-founded Obvious which then spun off Twitter, Inc. As chief executive officer, Dorsey saw the startup through two rounds of funding by the venture capitalists who back the company. On 16 October 2008 Williams took over the role of CEO, and Dorsey became chairman of the board.
As the service grew in popularity, Dorsey had to choose improving uptime as top priority, even over creating revenue - which, as of 2008, Twitter was not designed to earn. Dorsey described the commercial use of Twitter and its API as two things that could lead to paid features. His three guiding principles, which are shared by the whole company and through its culture, are simplicity, constraint and craftsmanship.
Jack Dorsey also began a new platform to accept debit and credit cards on a mobile device. The device is a small square-like object that has the ability to be attached to devices such as an iPhone, iPad or Laptop. This product is a mini card reader which allow a person to swipe their card, choose an amount to give to the recipient and then sign their name for confirmation.
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