Jack Dorsey Is Weird – But Steve Jobs Was a Billion Times Weirder
Jack Dorsey might be 'the next Steve Jobs' when it comes to tech disruption, but his weird habits don't hold a candle to the Apple founder.
Twitter chief Jack Dorsey's hippie credentials pale in comparison to iconic Apple founder Steve Jobs.| Source: REUTERS/AP; Edited by CCN.com
- Jack Dorsey says he only eats ‘seven meals every week, just dinner,’ and does a ‘painful’ form of meditation for two hours every day.
- That’s some far out hippie living. But the Twitter founder’s routines seem downright square compared to what Steve Jobs used to do.
- As Dorsey follows in Jobs’ eccentric footsteps, his Silicon Valley projects reflect the cosmic scale of vision that inspired 1980s Apple.
We learned something new about Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) and Square (NYSE:SQ) founder Jack Dorsey this week. He’s eating more these days. Jack is known for keeping an austere diet. In March, he told a fitness podcaster that he spends his weekends not eating.
These days Dorsey’s letting himself go.
On Tuesday, Wired’s audience learned that he’s now up to seven meals– a week. “Just dinner,” he says. Wow, Jack. Try to exercise some self-control.
Save a little arugula for the rest of us.
Jack Dorsey’s Got Some Hippie Cred
Jack Dorsey’s strict regimen is an extreme form of intermittent fasting (IF). It’s the latest diet and lifestyle fad sweeping California. IF is the revolt of L.A. celebrities against decades of scientists and mothers giving you the good advice not to skip breakfast.
Dorsey also practices an extreme form of meditation. He sits cross-legged without moving for two hours a day. It’s called “vipassana.” In 2018, Jack described it as:
[E]xtremely painful and demanding physical and mental work.
We get it, Jack. You’re a hippie. You Think Different.
But Steve Jobs Was A Bona Fide Dirty Hippie
When Dorsey does eat, it’s “a really big meal.” There’s lots of fish, chicken, or steak. Apple founder Steve Jobs spent many of his days as a fruitarian. Not a vegetarian, a fruitarian. And he believed that because of his fruit diet, he didn’t need to shower.
Jobs’ co-workers during his stint at Atari disagreed. His manager moved him to the night shift after employees started complaining about the smell. But after some early successes with Apple, Jobs got even weirder. He started soaking his feet in the company toilets:
“At meetings we had to look at his dirty feet. Sometimes, to relieve stress, he would soak his feet in the toilet, a practice that was not as soothing for his colleagues.” –Mike Markkula, Apple’s first chairman
Now that’s a demanding form of meditation.
Is Dorsey ‘The Next Steve Jobs?’
Jack Dorsey might say he’s not a hippie anyways, just a modern practitioner of Stoicism. But he is following in Steve Jobs’ footsteps, on a quest to “put a ding in the universe.”
Many in Silicon Valley have drawn comparisons between the two for the better part of the decade. In 2011, an early 1980s Apple employee told Newsweek:
Jack has a vision for things that don’t exist yet… I truly believe he is the Valley’s next Steve Jobs.
In 2012, TechCrunch documented an incredible number of similarities.
For Dorsey, like Jobs, making waves with computers isn’t about business or making money. It’s a burning crusade. It’s a mission to change the world and unleash its most cosmic potentials. At a career low point in 1994, Jobs told Rolling Stone:
In the broadest context, the goal is to seek enlightenment – however you define it.
Dorsey says:
Everything we do is about getting people to be more open, more creative, more courageous.
Apple revolutionized the way we use computers and listen to music by making it magically effortless. It completely disrupted the computer and recording industries.
Twitter has revolutionized the way we interact with news, media, and celebrities. It has doubtlessly put a ding in the universe of politics. Square has revolutionized the credit card and cash industries. And Jack Dorsey might just be getting started.