In 140 characters or less–StL native Jack Dorsey billionaire now. Twitter co-founder & CEO. Stock jumps 73% on 1st day in stock mkt.  He has 23.4 million shares.

A little more than seven years ago he changed the internet when he typed, “just setting up my twttr.”  And so was born, on March 21, 2006, Twitter.  He was 29 years old, the son of longtime St. Louis radio executive Tim Dorsey and his wife, Marcia.  He started his college career at Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, then switched to St. Louis University where he began thinking about something he later called TTwitter.

Dorsey moved to California where he founded a company that used the internet to dispatch emergency vehicles, taxis, and couriers.  Twitter grew out of that communication operations.  He teamed up with Biz Stone and Evan Williams to create a company that later spun off Twitter as a separate entity. Twitter has not been profitable yet. Analysts think it will be in the black in 2015.

He’ll be 37 in eleven days. St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay has told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Dorsey is “a visionary…who sees something different and more creatively than most people.” 

Dorsey also created Square, a little credit-card reading attachment for mobile phones and other devices that allows a allows credit card purchase processing on the spot. Square went into operation in 2010.    Some business analysts are speculating that Dorsey will take Square public before much longer