“Mozart liked to write letters while on the loo. He wrote, “I think it only fitting to write while shitting.” Who says men can’t multitask?” ― Peter Rogers
Err, every resource person I’ve ever talked to has given me a variant of the “multitasking reduces productivity” rant. I’m sure you’ve heard it too. Do one thing at a time, it increases your focus, you make less mistakes and so on.
Well, someone should have told Elon Musk. And Steve Jobs. And Bill Gates. And Jack Dorsey.
Especially Jack Dorsey.
Since June when Dick Costolo stepped down as CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey has been interim CEO, running both Square and Twitter simultaneously. Going by what we’re reading on the interwebs, he’s gonna be made permanent CEO.
Anytime now
Since the man’s already been pulling double duty for a few months, we’re counting on him doing a slamdunk job. Wanna bet? Here are the three other guys who says his odds are good.
Elon Musk
In 2002, Musk founded an orbital launch service called SpaceX, which currently employs over 4,000 people. Ten years later, SpaceX became the first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station. The company is currently valued at approximately $12 billion.
Could do this all day
A year after he setup SpaceX, Musk cofounded Tesla Motors, an automobile and energy storage company that now sees about $198 billion in revenue yearly. As Chairman, one of his major achievements was being able to successfully commercialise electric cars. In 2010, the company was able to go public.
Steve Jobs
After leaving Apple in 1985, Steve Jobs founded a new company called NeXT, Inc. The NeXT computer combined powerful hardware and software in ways that had never been done before.
I got my own toys now
The following year, he purchased an animation company from George Lucas, which later became Pixar Animation Studios. With Job’s guidance and an investment of $50 million, the studio went on to become a highly successful animation studio.
What happened to them? Pixar’s movies have collectively netted over $9 billion worldwide. NeXT didn’t do nearly as well, and Jobs eventually sold it to Apple.
Bill Gates
In 1975, Gates cofounded what would become the world’s largest software business, Microsoft, and subsequently became one of the richest men in the world. Most of the mega strides the company made was while Gates was actively at the helm of happenings at the company.
Easy peasy
What I’ll bet a lot of you don’t know however is that while Microsoft was crushing it, Gates went into visual media licensing and founded Corbis in 1989 (then known as Interactive Home Systems). Today, Corbis has offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia and serves more than 50 countries.
And back to the man of the hour… Jack Dorsey
In 2006, Jack cofounded the 140-character phenomenon/nuisance, depending on who you’re talking to, called Twitter. He saw the startup through two rounds of capital funding as CEO, while raising the platform’s popularity. He’s also credited for the 140-character limit.
‘Nuff said
Later on in 2009, he founded Square, a financial services aggregator and mobile payment company. In five years he was able to raise Square Inc’s value to $6 billion (and counting). And now, he’s returning as CEO of Twitter.
These guys successfully called bullshit on a widely held convention and did what entrepreneurs do – made things happen, when it needed to happen.
One more thing…
We feel obliged to say that entrepreneur discretion is advised. If you are not the next Jack Dorsey, in the way that Jack Dorsey is looking like the next Steve Jobs, you probably do not want to try this at home.
