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The Twitter CEO was paid $1.40 last year – a nod to the social network’s original message character limit.
When you have the willpower to jump into an ice cold bath at 5 a.m., you can achieve almost anything.
At least, that’s how Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, feels whose daily routine has been criticized, especially on his own social network, as that of a Spartan – in reference to this city of Greek antiquity where all of society had to adopt military discipline – or a psychopath.
Mr Dorsey told a fitness podcast show his daily habits of eating just one meal a day, fasting for most of the weekend and walking briskly to his office 8km away .
But the 42-year-old billionaire has also made headlines for his attitude towards his salary.
His first check after 10 years on the job was a measly $1.40 (800 CFA francs) last year, according to the company’s statements to US authorities.
This figure is a nod to Twitter’s initial limit of 140 characters per message, which was set when the platform was created in 2006. This limit was doubled in 2017, with the generalization of smartphones.
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Forbes values the 42-year-old man’s fortune at around $5 billion.
No problemsilver coins
That’s not to say the Twitter CEO is facing money troubles, though.
On the contrary, according to Forbes, he is “worth” more than $5 billion earning his profits from his shares in Twitter and Square, a mobile payments company he co-founded in 2009.
With more than 300 million monthly users, Twitter’s revenue hit a record high of $909 million in the last quarter of 2018, a 24% increase driven in part by video advertising.
“As a testament to his commitment and belief in Twitter’s long-term value creation potential, our CEO Jack Dorsey declined all compensation and benefits for 2015, 2016 and 2017. And in 2018, he declined all compensation and any benefits other than a $1.40 salary,” the company said.
The Twitter CEO isn’t the only Silicon Valley entrepreneur working for a “token” salary.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google founder Larry Page each earn $1 a year.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, has a base salary of $81,840 (about 47.5 million CFA francs) a year, which hasn’t changed since 1998.
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Mr Dorsey owns 2.3% of Twitter shares.
Even the billionaire Warren Buffett has a relatively “modest” salary of 100,000 dollars (nearly 58 million CFA francs).
But that’s because the salary is not the main source of income for these men.
Mr. Dorsey owns 2.3% of Twitter. He owns 60 million shares of Square, which have gone from $9 in 2015 to $75 today. Last year, he sold 1.7 million shares of Square for a net $80 million, according to Forbes magazine.
His real salary in this company was also symbolic: 2.75 dollars (nearly 1,600 CFA francs) in reference to the 2.75% fee charged on transactions.
The similarities with other Silicon Valley CEOs end there, as Mr. Dorsey’s daily habits for staying physically and mentally fit are different from those of others.
He said on the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast that he wakes up at dawn to alternate 3-minute baths in ice water with 15 minutes of sauna.
Then he meditates for an hour, as he has done for 20 years.
Mr Dorsey publicized the benefits of mindfulness by tweeting after a retreat in Burma last year: “For ten days: no devices, no reading, no writing, no physical exercise , no music, nothing toxic, no meat, no conversation, not even eye contact with others. It’s free: everything is given to those who come to meditate for charity.”
In the hour-long podcast, the entrepreneur also shared that he only ate “one big meal a day” around 6:30 p.m., a meal consisting of protein and salad, berries or dark chocolate.
He says his lifestyle makes him much more focused during the day and ready to handle the demands of his high-pressure job.
A day in the life of billionaire Jack Dorsey – BBC News Africa