TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Jack Dorsey has long been a prominent figure in the global tech industry, for his role in the birth of the social media platform Twitter (now called X) and as the founder of the financial technology company Block, Inc. (Square). Now he is back in the spotlight after launching Bitchat, a messaging app that can be used without internet access.
Profile of Jack Dorsey
Jack Dorsey was born on November 19, 1976 in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. He is an American web developer and entrepreneur who founded Twitter in 2006. His interest in computer programming began at a young age, as he started as a student at Bishop DuBourg High School.
Dorsey was fascinated by the technological challenge behind coordinating taxi drivers, delivery vans, and other vehicle fleets that needed to constantly and in real-time communicate with each other. At the age of 15, Dorsey wrote delivery software that was used by taxi companies for several decades thereafter.
Dorsey studied at the University of Missouri-Rolla before dropping out. He was involved in web development as a student and co-founded the social networking site Twitter with Biz Stone and Evan Williams in 2006.
The basic concept behind Twitter was allowing users to send short messages (tweets) with a maximum length of 140 characters, which was later expanded to 280 characters. Dorsey then served as CEO, chair of the board, and executive chair of Twitter.
Prior to Twitter, Dorsey had been involved in several technology companies. He had worked in software companies, and his ideas about connecting people through short messages eventually led to the birth of Twitter.
In addition to Twitter, Dorsey also became the CEO of Square, a mobile payment company, in 2010. His ability to lead two companies at the same time demonstrated his exceptional managerial skills. In October 2015, he was again appointed as CEO of Twitter while remaining the CEO of Square.
Stepping Down from Twitter and Creating BitChat
Quoted from Britannica, in 2021, Jack Dorsey resigned as CEO of Twitter, stating that being a founder-led company was very limiting and a point of failure.
Previously, in 2020, Dorsey often received various criticisms, especially regarding his efforts to limit access to inappropriate content. One of them was when Twitter permanently banned U.S. President Donald Trump over a tweet deemed to violate the social media platform's policies.
In 2022, Elon Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion and then rebranded the bird logo social media platform as X.
In July 2025, Dorsey launched an experimental messaging app called Bitchat. This app allows users to exchange messages peer-to-peer via a Bluetooth mesh network, without the need for internet connection, phone numbers, or central servers.
Editor’s Choice: Former Twitter CEO Develops Bitchat, an Offline Messaging App
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