Joe Rogan Experience #1236 - Jack Dorsey

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   Three, two, one (hands clap)…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:04

      Three, two, one (hands clap) . Boom. Hello, Jack.

   2. JDJack Dorsey0:09

      What's up?

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:10

      Nice to meet you, man.

   4. JDJack Dorsey0:11

      Nice to meet you finally.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      Yeah, I keep this sucker like a fist from your face.

   6. JDJack Dorsey0:13

      Got it.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      It's always good. First of all, dude, um-

   8. JDJack Dorsey0:16

      (clears throat) .

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      ... you started a company... When you started Twitter, when you guys first started, did you have any ide-... L- there's no way you could've had a- any idea what it would be now.

   10. JDJack Dorsey0:25

       No.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:25

       But, uh, one of the things I always try emphasize with people when they're people like, "Oh, Twitter's crazy." I'm like, "How could it not be crazy?" There's never been anything like it before. Like imagine trying to predict the kind of im-... Uh, the president of the United States uses threa- Twitter to threaten other countries.

   12. JDJack Dorsey0:43

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:43

       I mean, (laughs) who the fuck saw that coming? Nobody saw that coming.

   14. JDJack Dorsey0:47

       Not us. Not us.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:47

       What did you think it was gonna be when you first did it?

   16. JDJack Dorsey0:51

       Well, you know, we were building this thing for ourselves, and that's how... (sighs) Tha- that's how everything starts. We wanted to use it. We wanted to, um... We wanted to, you know, stay connected with each other. We, we-

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:03

       Like a group text almost.

   18. JDJack Dorsey1:04

       Like a group text. We loved our phones. We loved, um, technology. We, we actually started this as a Hack Week project out of a failed company called Odeo. It was podcasting.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:16

       I remember that.

   20. JDJack Dorsey1:17

       Yeah, yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:17

       I remember Odeo.

   22. JDJack Dorsey1:17

       Super early on. We were, uh, we were really creative folks, but we weren't that passionate about where podcasting was going in our particular, um, domain. And we just got a lot of competition early on. iTunes just released their podcast directory. But we knew we wanted to work together. We knew, um... We loved this idea of one button publishing. We loved this idea of collaboration. We loved this idea of, uh, being anywhere and being able to share what was happening. That was, that was the idea. I mean, tha- that was it, and that's what we wanted it to be. And I think the most beautiful and also sometimes uncomfortable aspect of Twitter is it, um... We really learned what it wanted to be, and the people helped create it. Like everything that we hold sacred now, the at symbol, the hashtag, the retweet, those were not invented by me or the company. Those were things that we discovered, things that we discovered people using, and we just observed it and we, we noticed what they were trying to do. They were trying to talk with one another. They were trying to, um, collect tweets around topics with the hashtag.

   23. JRJoe Rogan2:35

       Has anybody figured out when the first use of hashtag something was created?

   24. JDJack Dorsey2:39

       Yeah, it was, um... It was actually our lead designer, uh, Robert Anderson, who leads our design of the Cash App, um, hired him for Square, uh, later on. But, uh, he was the first one. He was actually communicating with his brother, and, uh, he put @Buzz. His brother's name is Buzz. And it just kinda spread. It wasn't en masse, but people were doing it. But what was m- most interesting is not what they were doing but what they wanted to do with it. They wanted to address each other, and that s- that changed the company completely. That changed the service, because it went from just broadcasting what's happening to conversation, and to being, being able to address anyone publicly out in the open, which came with it a lot of power and also a lot of issues as well.

   25. JRJoe Rogan3:32

       Yeah, the, the use of hashtags, like, uh, l- looking up hashtag, you know, Fry Fest or hashtag-

   26. JDJack Dorsey3:40

       Mm-hmm.

   27. JRJoe Rogan3:40

       ... you know, any time there's something weird that's in the news. That's, uh, that's such a unique way to find things, but to go on Twitter and to, to utilize that, it's, uh... I mean, it's, it's interesting that you're f- that this guy just did it just to contact his brother.

   28. JDJack Dorsey3:55

       Well, that wa- that was the at symbol. The hashtag was this guy Chris Messina and he-

   29. JRJoe Rogan3:58

       Oh, good for you.

   30. JDJack Dorsey3:59

       ... was trying to, he was trying to tag, um, he was t- trying to tag around topics that he was tweeting about. And, again, that spread. All we did was made it easier. We made it more accessible. We, we enabled everyone to do it. Uh, with the at symbol, we made a page that collected all mentions of your name. With the hashtag, we allowed people to search, uh, immediately, so you could tap on the keyword and you would see everyone talking about that or tweeting about that specific hashtag. So, these things were just emergent behaviors that we didn't predict and they became the lifeblood of the service.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Right. …

   1. JDJack Dorsey15:00

      uh, it's a mess. No one reads 'em. You, you know, you-

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:04

      Right.

   3. JDJack Dorsey15:04

      ... sign up for these services, and you quickly hit accept.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:08

      Yeah.

   5. JDJack Dorsey15:08

      And we expect people to read these rules of the road, but they haven't read them. And-

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:16

      Have you ever read them?

   7. JDJack Dorsey15:17

      I have read them. (laughs) I've read them.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:18

      You've read your own.

   9. JDJack Dorsey15:19

      I've-

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:19

       Have you read Facebook's?

   11. JDJack Dorsey15:21

       I haven't read Facebook's.

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:22

       Yeah.

   13. JDJack Dorsey15:22

       I'm not on Facebook.

   14. JRJoe Rogan15:23

       But you probably ... You're not on it?

   15. JDJack Dorsey15:23

       I'm not on Facebook.

   16. JRJoe Rogan15:24

       Wow. Fuck Facebook, right?

   17. JDJack Dorsey15:25

       (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan15:26

       No, I'm just kidding. What about Instagram? You ever read theirs?

   19. JDJack Dorsey15:30

       I was, uh, I was in the first 10 users of, uh, of Instagram.

   20. JRJoe Rogan15:34

       Really?

   21. JDJack Dorsey15:35

       Uh, Kevin was a intern. Kevin Systrom was an intern at, uh, Odeo. And, um, I was one of the first investors of Instagram and love the service. I don't think I've ever read their terms of service.

   22. JRJoe Rogan15:46

       Hm. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Even you.

   23. JDJack Dorsey15:49

       Even me. But I read ours, and one of the things I noticed, um, right away is, you know, you read our, uh, you read our terms of service, and one of the first things that we put at the top of the page was copyright and intellectual property, um, protections.

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:06

       Mm.

   25. JDJack Dorsey16:07

       You go down, you scroll down, you see everything about violent threats and abuse and harassment and, uh, safety. And it's not that the company intended for that to be the order. It just, we just added things going on. But-

   26. JRJoe Rogan16:23

       Mm.

   27. JDJack Dorsey16:23

       ... even a read of that puts forth our point of view. Like, we're, we're, we're actually putting copyright infringement above the safety, the physical-

   28. JRJoe Rogan16:32

       Right.

   29. JDJack Dorsey16:32

       ... safety of someone. So we need to relook at some of these things and how they've evolved and how they reacted and-

   30. JRJoe Rogan16:38

       But is it above just because it's listed second? I mean, is it, they're essentially all on the same one sheet.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      followers-

   2. JDJack Dorsey30:00

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      ... I'm like, "I can't do this anymore."

   4. JDJack Dorsey30:02

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:02

      It's just, it just, it's overwhelming...... like, I don't have the resources.

   6. JDJack Dorsey30:06

      Yeah. I, I'm a huge believer in serendipity. So you, you, you look at your replies once, and you might see something that just, like, strikes you-

   7. JRJoe Rogan30:13

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JDJack Dorsey30:13

      ... and that's enough. You don't need to read through all of 'em.

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:15

      Yeah. Sometimes.

   10. JDJack Dorsey30:16

       And, and, it just-

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:16

       But then you might miss something groovy.

   12. JDJack Dorsey30:18

       You might, but I'm, uh, I also believe the, the most important things come back up.

   13. JRJoe Rogan30:22

       What I used to do a lot would, I would go through my mentions, and when people would... Uh, uh, I essentially used it as almost a news aggregator. I would go through my mentions-

   14. JDJack Dorsey30:30

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan30:30

       ... and people would post cool stories, and then I would retweet those. And so because people knew that I would retweet 'em, they would send me a lot of cool stuff. So because of that, because of reciprocating, I got a lot of really cool stuff sent my way.

   16. JDJack Dorsey30:41

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan30:41

       And-

   18. JDJack Dorsey30:41

       You're pushing, you're pushing more out to expand the network.

   19. JRJoe Rogan30:44

       Yeah.

   20. JDJack Dorsey30:44

       Yep.

   21. JRJoe Rogan30:44

       And I, I'm, I reinforced it. I just, I wanted to thank people for posting cool stuff, and they loved the fact that they would get a retweet, and so they would send me, like, interesting science stories or, you know-

   22. JDJack Dorsey30:55

       Okay.

   23. JRJoe Rogan30:55

       ... very bizarre nature stories, and I'd just be retweeting 'em all the time, going to... But then after a while I'm like, "Mm, this is just a lot of time."

   24. JDJack Dorsey31:04

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan31:04

       It's a lot of time. So now, essentially what I do is I just post something, and I just kind of, like, ugh-

   26. JDJack Dorsey31:10

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan31:10

       ... I just walk away.

   28. JDJack Dorsey31:11

       But, but that, I mean, that, that speaks of what we want to incentivize more. We want more people contributing things that, back to the network.

   29. JRJoe Rogan31:19

       Yeah.

   30. JDJack Dorsey31:19

       Back to the, back to the public conversation. And I, I know it doesn't feel like this today for most people, but my ideal is someone walks away from Twitter learning something, and they're actually learning something entirely new.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   I, I, I think…

   1. JDJack Dorsey45:00

      And that's why our work is so critical to figure out some of the dynamics at play that, that, um, that make it, uh, that, that cause more negative outcomes than positive outcomes.

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:15

      I, I, I think about it because, uh, well, I think about it because it's ch- it's just a hugely significant thing. But I also think about it because of podcasts 'cause podcasts are i- in a similar way. Just no one saw it coming and the people-

   3. JDJack Dorsey45:32

      Yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:32

      ... that are involved in it are like, "What the fuck are we doing?"

   5. JDJack Dorsey45:34

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan45:34

      Like me. I'm like, "What am I doing?" Like, "What is this?"

   7. JDJack Dorsey45:37

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan45:37

      Like for me it's like, ooh, boy, I get to talk to guys like Ben Greenfield and, and Jonathan Haidt and all-

   9. JDJack Dorsey45:44

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan45:44

       ... the, all these different people and l- learn some stuff. And I've, I've c- clearly learned way more from doing this podcast than I ever would have learned without it. No doubt about it.

   11. JDJack Dorsey45:54

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan45:54

       Unquestionably. But I didn't, I didn't fucking plan this. So now all of a sudden there's this, uh, signal that I'm sending out to millions and millions of people and then people are like, "Well, you have a responsibility." I'm like, "Oh, great. Well, I didn't want that." I didn't want a responsibility to what, what I distribute. I just wanted to be able to have a freak show.

   13. JDJack Dorsey46:13

       (laughs)

   14. JRJoe Rogan46:13

       Just talk to people, like what e- whatever... You know, like, there's certain people that I'll have on, whether it's Alex Jones or anyone that's controversial, where people will get fucking mad. "Why are you giving this person a platform?" I go, "Okay. Hmm. I didn't think about it that way and I don't think that's what I'm doing. I think I'm talking to people and you can listen."

   15. JDJack Dorsey46:31

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan46:31

       But it's giving that person a platform 'cause they're saying, "Well, no, they'll tone down their..." Like Milo Yiannopoulos, that was one of the arguments people gave me. Like, "He toned down his platform when he was on your show so you could get more people to pay attention to him." I'm like, "Okay, but he also talked about..." He, he, um, that was one of the reasons why he was exposed was my show because he talked about that it's okay to have sex with underage boys w- if they're gay because there's like a mentor relationship between the older gay man and the younger... And people were like, "What the fuck are you talking about?"

   17. JDJack Dorsey47:01

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan47:01

       And that was a big part of why he's kind of been removed from the public conversation. That was, that was one of the thi- and, and then there's the discussion like, well, what is that? What is removing someone from the public conversation? If someone is very popular and they've, have all these people that like to listen to them, like what is the responsibility of these platforms? Whether it's YouTube or Twitter or anyone.

   19. JDJack Dorsey47:24

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan47:24

       What is their responsibility in, to decide whether or not someone should or shouldn't be able to speak? And this is a thing that I've been struggling with and I've been... I, I bounce around inside my own head and I see that you guys struggle with it. And, uh, man-

   21. JDJack Dorsey47:38

       Totally.

   22. JRJoe Rogan47:38

       ... pretty much everyone does. YouTube does. And it's, um, it, it is a, a hugely significant discussion that is left to a very, you know, relatively small amount of people. And this is why this discussion of what is social media? Is it something that everybody has a right to? Or is it something that should be restricted to only people that are willing to behave and, uh, carry themselves in a certain way?

   23. JDJack Dorsey48:07

       ... I, I believe it's something that everyone has a right to, but-

   24. JRJoe Rogan48:11

       Everyone has a right to, but you still ban people.

   25. JDJack Dorsey48:13

       But-

   26. JRJoe Rogan48:13

       Like say like, like Alex Jones. You guys were the last guys to keep Alex Jones on the platform.

   27. JDJack Dorsey48:18

       Mm-hmm.

   28. JRJoe Rogan48:18

       You were the last ones.

   29. JDJack Dorsey48:19

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan48:20

       And I believe you hung in there until he started harassing you personally, right?
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   (laughs) …

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      I know what you s-

   2. JDJack Dorsey1:00:01

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:01

      Yeah. (laughs)

   4. JDJack Dorsey1:00:03

      That's all locked down by the operating system and that's-

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:05

      Right.

   6. JDJack Dorsey1:00:05

      ... where it should be.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:06

      Right. Sure. Um, what... Ha- has there ever been any consideration to not allowing people to post anonymously?

   8. JDJack Dorsey1:00:15

      Well-

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:16

      Because I- I like what you said earlier about journalists and whistleblowers, that- that is critical.

   10. JDJack Dorsey1:00:20

       Yeah, but, look... So look at, uh, look at platforms that, that have a real names policy. Look at Facebook.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:00:25

       Right.

   12. JDJack Dorsey1:00:25

       Are the problems any different?

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:00:27

       I don't know, 'cause I don't go there. But from what I understand, there's a lot of, still a lot of arguing there.

   14. JDJack Dorsey1:00:33

       It's the same-

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:00:33

       A lot of political arguing.

   16. JDJack Dorsey1:00:34

       ... th- they're the same-

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:00:35

       A lot of old people.

   18. JDJack Dorsey1:00:35

       ... vectors, the same patterns, um-

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:00:37

       Aren't they older? It's, like, older in general?

   20. JDJack Dorsey1:00:40

       It seems ... I also am not really hanging out there, but it, it seems a little bit older.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:00:44

       It's a lot of Grammys looking at pictures of their kids-

   22. JDJack Dorsey1:00:46

       (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:00:46

       ... and grandkids and stuff.

   24. JDJack Dorsey1:00:48

       (laughs)

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:00:48

       And arguing about immigrants.

   26. JDJack Dorsey1:00:48

       That's what it was made for. It's, it's connecting, it's connecting with the people that you know, and, and that to me is the biggest difference with Twitter. It's connecting with people you don't know-

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:00:56

       Well-

   28. JDJack Dorsey1:00:56

       ... and you find interesting and, like, it's around, it's around topics and stuff that you find, uh, that you wanna learn more about.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:01:01

       When you saw Zuckerberg testifying and, and, and realizing, like, how this platform is being used and what are the dangers of this, and then you see these senators that really don't know what the fuck the technology is or-

   30. JDJack Dorsey1:01:15

       Yeah.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:18:54

   It... If... I mean,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:15:00

      and more, um, more and more integrated into our life experience. And I wonder what is the next stage of this.

   2. JDJack Dorsey1:15:09

      It... If... I mean, like, the, the secular trends and, you know, you look at technology and you look at technologies like, like blockchain, for instance, and I think, you know, we're, we're moving to a world where anything created exists forever. Um, that there's no centralized control over who sees what. Um, that, uh, you know, these, these, these models become completely decentralized, and all these barriers, um, that we... that exist today aren't as important anymore. And-

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:15:43

      What do you think of something like Gab? Like, Gab seems to be a response to the fact that some people are getting banned from other platforms, and they're just allowing anybody to come on and say anything they want.

   4. JDJack Dorsey1:15:54

      Yep.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:15:55

      The downside of that is, of course, the most horrible people are gonna be able to say anything they want with no repercussions. The good side is anybody can say whatever they want.

   6. JDJack Dorsey1:16:05

      Yeah. I haven't studied them too much, but I do know that they have taken action on accounts as well. They have suspended accounts, and they have... They have a terms of service as well.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:16:13

      What are they... What have they suspended accounts for? Do you know?

   8. JDJack Dorsey1:16:15

      I- I don't know. I- it's, it's probably conduct-related. It's probably... It might be doxing, you know? Um...

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:16:20

      Mm. Probably, right?

   10. JDJack Dorsey1:16:21

       But it's just a, it's just a question of, like, you know, the rules, and if you agree to the rules, then, you know, you sign up for the service. And if, if not, um, there will be other services. But, like, it... I-... You look at, you look at the trends, and I, I think, um... You know. And I-... Certainly, things become a lot more public. Certainly, things become a lot more open. Certainly, the, the, the barriers and the boundaries that we have in place today become less meaningful. And I think there's a lot of positives in that, and I th-... I also think there's a lot of danger that we need to be mindful of.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:16:57

       Now, you, as a CEO, as a guy who's running this thing, what, what has this been... has the experience been like for you? 'Cause I gotta imagine that it wasn't anything that you predicted. No one predicted Twitter, right?

   12. JDJack Dorsey1:17:10

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:17:10

       So, to all of a sudden have this responsibility-

   14. JDJack Dorsey1:17:13

       Twitter changed everything. I mean, it, it-

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:17:15

       And you're a young guy. How old are you?

   16. JDJack Dorsey1:17:16

       42.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:17:17

       That's young to be in control of that much. Like, what... And to have it over the time of... What has it been? Uh, 11 years?

   18. JDJack Dorsey1:17:26

       13 years. Will be 13 in March, yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:17:29

       13 years? Yeah, so you were really fucking young.

   20. JDJack Dorsey1:17:30

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:17:31

       Like, what has that been like for you?

   22. JDJack Dorsey1:17:34

       It's been, uh... It's been both beautiful and scary and uncomfortable and learning. (laughs) It's just been a ton of learning and evolving and, like, it shows me every single day where I need to push myself and what I don't know. And, uh, and I... I think a big part is, like, just the realization that we're not gonna be able to do this alone, and I don't think we have to either. The... These are w-... These are what the technologies continue to allow, is we can... I- if, if we have to have all the answers around enforcement or policy, whatnot, we're, we're not going to serve the world. We have aspirations to serve every single person on the planet, and we, we have aspirations to, you know, be the first consideration for the global public conversation. And, you know, if, if we're the bottleneck, um, for all this, we're, we're not going to reach those aspirations. So, it's just thinking deeply about how we might distribute more of this work and decentralize, uh, more of it and look at, look at, you know, the platform itself and, like, what we need to change to reach that reality. And I, I think we gotta look really deep and foundational. It... It goes back to, you know, the... Like, your question on 140. One of the things that we saw was, you know, we, we shifted to 280 characters, and that... You know, this 140 characters is so sacred, you know? It-

Episode duration: 1:55:07