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If you’re one of Jack Dorsey’s 4.1 Twitter followers, you might have some idea about how the tech entrepreneur lives his life,
but today we are taking a deep look and uncovering all the controversial and sometimes shocking elements of his lifestyle
that you may have never heard before.
Since co-founding Twitter, Dorsey has become one of the most successful figures in Silicon Valley,
but his lifestyle is not one you might expect from a typical billionaire.
Today we are telling the story of the insane lifestyle of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
So, who is Jack Dorsey anyway? Let me see if I can tell you in 280 characters or less.
Just kidding, but of course, Jack is best known as the co-founder and CEO of Twitter.
He came up with the initial idea for Twitter when he was an undergrad at NYU
and ended up dropping out of college one semester short of graduating.
He was only 29 when Twitter launched in March 2006.
He is also a co-founder and current CEO of Square, which offers a device that allows for mobile debit and credit card payments.
When Square went public in October 2015, Dorsey owned 24.4% of the company.
However, he first became a billionaire in 2012, and today his net worth is just over five billion dollars.
With that much wealth, you can imagine Dorsey lives a life of luxury, but it’s probably not what you’d expect.
Dorsey’s lifestyle is truly insane, but let’s start with the basics.
Since 2012, Jack has lived in a relatively modest two-bedroom, two bathroom San Francisco mansion that cost him 10 million dollars.
The view alone is worth at least a million bucks—his home is located on a cliffside with direct views of the Golden Gate Bridge.
When he decided to expand his property portfolio, he didn’t look very far.
In fact, he bought the house next door.
In late 2018, Jack paid 21.9 million dollars for the five-bedroom, three bathroom mansion
that also has breathtaking views of the San Francisco Bay.
The house had been left vacant for 15 years and needed a bit of work.
He’s already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on renovations.
Where he lives is probably the most luxurious part of his lifestyle.
But, now let’s look at one of the most controversial aspects—his diet.
It has to take plenty of energy to run two very successful tech companies, and we all know that energy comes from food.
So it might surprise you to know that Dorsey barely eats at all.
Dorsey follows an extreme diet of intermittent fasting.
He skips breakfast and lunch every single day.
He eats one meal Monday through Thursday between 6:30 and 9:00 at night.
From Friday through Sunday evening, he fasts completely and only consumes water.
The first time he tried it, he said he was having hallucinations by the third day, but now he says fasting helps him focus.
When he does eat, his typical meal consists simply of a protein like grilled chicken and vegetables.
The only sugar he eats comes from mixed berries, dark chocolate, or a glass of red wine.
Dorsey is constantly experimenting with his fasting schedule to see what is most effective, so there are variations in his routine,
but he strongly believes in intermittent fasting.
Now that we have his diet covered, let’s see how he spends his day.
Jack always aims to go to bed by 10pm and wake up between 5:30 and 6:30am.
We know he doesn’t eat breakfast, so how does he start his day?
Sticking to a consistent routine is very important to him.
He begins his day with a cold shower followed by an hour of silent meditation.
On days he has off and in the evenings, he hops into his infrared SaunaSpace sauna and sits in temps as high as 125 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes.
He’ll then go directly from the heat to a 3-minute ice bath in his tub, which is set to negative 37 degrees Fahrenheit.
He repeats this hot and cold process up to three times.
Before walking out the door, he also tries to drink about 28 ounces of water or a mixture of lemon juice, water, and Himalayan salt.
On the three days a week that he goes into the office, he walks the five miles to work, which takes him about an hour and fifteen minutes.
He says this walk makes him feel alive, but about when he gets to work?
Jack works from home two days a week, but Monday, Wednesday, and Friday he walks to Twitter head offices first.
He works there from about 9am to 2pm then heads across the street to the Square offices.
He stays there until 6 or 7.
He works at a standing desk and has a near-infrared bulb shining on him,
which is said to support cellular regeneration and anti-aging effects.
At the end of the day, he takes a Lyft home and eats his dinner.
This is followed by a 7-minute workout and a visit to the sauna.
He then fits in up to another hour of meditation before doing some reflective journaling and writing his to-do list for the next day.
When he’s ready for bed, he monitors his sleep with an Oura Ring, which tracks sleep quality and recovery speed.
With such a regimented schedule, even Dorsey needs a break every now and then.
Let’s see how Dorsey likes to escape the day to day.
As a billionaire, Dorsey can clearly go wherever he wants,
so a 10-day silent meditation retreat to celebrate his 46th birthday might seem like a strange choice.
In late 2018, Dorsey traveled all the way to Myanmar to practice silent vipassana meditation.
The 10-day stretch of silence began on the night of his birthday, November 19th.
He meditated daily from 4:30am to 9pm with minimal breaks.
Cell phones and other gadgets were banned, but Jack did hold on to his Apple Watch,
which he put in airplane mode and used to track his heart rate.
The participants were expected to sit perfectly still and silent and focus on their breathing.
Over the 10 days, reading, writing, physical contact, and any form of communication were strictly forbidden.
One night, when they meditated in a cave, he was bitten by mosquitos 117 times in the first 10 minutes.
It’s definitely not everyone’s first choice for a vacation, but Dorsey highly recommends it,
saying it brought him to an incredible level of focus and clarity.
So what can we all learn from Jack’s insane lifestyle?
One lesson that we can learn from Dorsey is the path to success looks different for everyone.
Dorsey’s lifestyle and his methods for achieving clarity and focus may seem too extreme to you, and that’s perfectly fine.
You have to figure out what works best for you and your lifestyle.
Like Jack, you can make a consistent schedule to follow based on your particular goals and priorities.
We don’t recommend taking risks with your health just to copy what one successful person has done.
Like Jack, you can pave your own unique path with your specific needs in mind so that you can perform at your optimum level.
And if you want to dive deeper into the story behind how Jack Dorsey and his three co-founders launched Twitter,
check out the book Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal.
The book was written by Nick Bilton, a columnist, and reporter for the New York Times.
He goes into detail about all of the drama behind the scenes in the early days of Twitter.
And, if you'd rather keep that 25 bucks in your pocket. You can check it out on Audible for free.
Just go to alux.com/freebook and sign up, to get the audiobook version for free, thanks to our partnership with Audible!
While researching his story, we’ve come across this incredible quote from Jack we’d like to share with you, and it goes like this:
So many great ideas never get off the ground because those who think of them get overwhelmed and don’t know where to begin.
Jack reminds us that the most important thing is just to start.
You don’t have to launch a company overnight.
Just keep it simple, start small, and move forward.
Now that we’ve taken a closer look at Dorsey’s insane lifestyle, we’d like to know:
Let us know what you think in the comments.
And, of course, for sticking with us until the end, here's that bonus you're waiting for.
Jack was ousted as CEO of Twitter in 2008, just one year after its founding.
The reason was reportedly that he was devoting too much time to his extracurricular activities and neglecting his primary duties.
He would leave work early and show up to meetings late due to conflicts with yoga, sewing classes, drawing classes, and more.
But he was later reinstated as CEO in 2015.
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