Jack Dorsey on his childhood inspiration for Twitter
The co-founder of the microblogging network explains to "60 Minutes" how listening to a police scanner as a child led to Twitter's creation.
Twitter was partly inspired by the emergency dispatch center in St. Louis, Jack Dorsey explained to "60 Minutes" in a report that aired this evening.
A speech impediment as a child kept the Twitter co-founder at home a lot, where he would play on a computer and listen to the police scanner. He found himself fascinated by the short bursts of talking used by law enforcement and emergency personnel, which was the inspiration for the microblogging social network.
"They're always talking about where they're going, what they're doing and where they currently are," Dorsey told the CBS TV magazine "60 Minutes." "And that is where the idea for Twitter came, was now we all have these cell phones. We had text messaging. And suddenly we could update where I was, what I'm doing, where I'm going, how I feel. And then it would go out to the entire world."
He also talks about his feelings of being forced out of the social network he founded in 2006.
"I was angry," said Dorsey, who has described the episode as like being punched in the gut. "I was angry at -- you know, the board. I was angry at my co-founders. I was angry at myself."
The "60 Minutes" segment with Dorsey: