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Jack Dorsey tells '60 Minutes' Twitter, Square creation stories

This Sunday, Dorsey, the founder of two of the tech world's hottest companies, goes back to his roots in St. Louis to talk about how he got interested in microcommunications.

Daniel Terdiman Former Senior Writer / News
Daniel Terdiman is a senior writer at CNET News covering Twitter, Net culture, and everything in between.
Daniel Terdiman
Twitter and Square founder Jack Dorsey at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco last year. Daniel Terdiman/CNET

It might be hard to believe that emergency dispatchers in St. Louis were the inspiration for Twitter, but that's exactly the case, Jack Dorsey told "60 Minutes" recently.

This Sunday, Dorsey -- who co-founded Twitter and later co-founded Square, the mobile payments company -- will appear on "60 Minutes," recalling how listening in on radio calls between emergency dispatchers fueled his interest in the idea of very short-form communications (see video below).

During the episode, which will air Sunday evening on CBS (CNET's parent company), Dorsey will talk about growing up in St. Louis and his eventual move to San Francisco and the creation of the 140-character medium that became Twitter. He'll also talk about being forced out of the social-networking company (and his eventual return) as well as the founding of Square, one of the hottest companies in the mobile payments space.