"I love technology because it allows people to impact something bigger than themselves," said Mr Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Twitter, speaking in a special dialogue that was part of the SMU Presidential Distinguished Lecturer Series (PDLS).

Mr Dorsey was visiting SMU along with key members of his leadership team on 20 March 2019. The event deviated from the usual PDLS format of a lecture and Q&A session. Instead, the initial lecture was omitted to make more time for a longer, lively dialogue session where Mr Dorsey shared his views and answered questions surrounding the topics of online falsehoods, entrepreneurship and personal development,

SMU President Prof Lily Kong moderated the discussion and audience of around 300 SMU students, staff and faculty, and Junior College and Polytechnic students and teachers who learned, from the man who sent the world’s first tweet, how Twitter grew into the social media giant that it is today.

During the dialogue, Mr Dorsey advocated the development of an environment where students are able to experiment with different ideas without fear of failure and be able to learn from their mistakes. He also explained how and why he co-founded mobile payments company Square Inc. He said that an entrepreneur needs to be able to embrace opportunities that may arise as they are growing their start-ups and be ready to change course to achieve maximum impact.

Making an impact is clearly what drives him, as it is also his primary criteria in prioritising work. “I focus on what will make the most impact,” he said when asked about multitasking and time management.

He also commented that “blockchain and cryptocurrency are making location irrelevant” and that if he were launching a start-up today, he would consider Singapore or Uruguay instead of San Francisco or another city in the US, because they offer an effective means to sandbox ideas before thinking about global markets.

Mr Dorsey was frank and open in addressing a wide variety of questions from a large number of members of the audience. For example when asked what advice he wished he could have given to himself at 20 years of age, he admitted that “Not exercising and sleeping made every hour less effective. Now that I do commit myself to sleep... to exercise, and to health, these have made every minute more productive."

Mr Dorsey stressed that self-awareness is a crucial attribute that everyone should have, as it allows the identification of one's strengths and weaknesses to enable the individual to take steps to further improve himself or herself and those around them. “Self-awareness leads me to areas I want to improve. The responsibility I have to the company, to people, is a commitment to constant improvement.”

Another participant asked him whether advances in technology made him feel positive about the future? “We’re experiencing technology on a scale that we have never seen,” he said. “It’s going to happen anyway. Let’s find the virtue in it and make it better.”

Click here to see more photos taken during Mr Dorsey’s visit.

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