Jack Dorsey Is Changing Your Wallet

Fresh from his Twitter payday, the entrepreneur looks to expand the reach of his payment system, Square

The Harlem skin clinic on Frederick Douglass Boulevard in New York City is not the first place you'd expect to run into Jack Dorsey. But on a snowy December afternoon, the 37-year-old CEO of Square and chairman of Twitter appears to be in his element far from San Francisco, where the two companies he co-founded are headquartered on adjacent city blocks. The clinic's owner, Seven Brown, manages her business from her iPad, using Square's Register app and Reader credit-card swiper. When she talks about them, she keeps using the same word: fantastic.

Dorsey dropped in on Brown because she was going to be participating in a panel that he was moderating at Harlem's Apollo Theater that evening. Square organized the event and others like it across the country to discuss the pleasures and pitfalls of running a small business. "Our responsibility is not just to build a tool or a service," explains Dorsey. "It's also to provide a venue for conversation." That sounds a bit like Twitter, the social network that remains Dorsey's highest-profile venture. Thanks to its successful IPO in November, it's also the source of his biggest payday: his 4.3% stake is valued at about $1.5 billion.

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