Haute 100: Visa Invests in Jack Dorsey’s Square

Over the weekend, Visa, the largest credit card and debit company, announced its plans to expand in the mobile realm. In a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, Visa revealed it now owns a 9.99 percent stake in the class A shares of Square, the mobile payments startup co-founded by Twitter CEO and Haute 100 lister Jack Dorsey.

According to Reuters, Visa’s current holdings are just more than 4.19 million shares of Class B common stock. The company has the option to convert up to 3.52 million of these shares into Class A stock, which would give it at most a 9.99 percent stake in the share class.

The company’s current one percent stake is based off Square’s fully diluted common equity as of Dec. 31, 2015.

For those of you unfamiliar with Square, it is a financial services, merchant services aggregator and mobile payment company based in San Francisco, California. Square also includes Apple Pay and EMV.

Late last year, Dorsey hosted a live Q&A session on Product Hunt. The CEO of both Twitter and Square answered techies’ burning questions, which revolved around Dorsey’s time management, his businesses and more. The Q&A was hosted by fellow Haute 100 lister Chris Sacca, a Silicon Valley investor.

Here are the highlights:

On Qualities He Looks For in Prospective Employees

Question: What is the most important quality you look, when you hire?

Dorsey: I look for passion. Only thing that can’t be taught. Why Square? Why Twitter? If I hear passion for the purpose in the answer, then I look for leadership and skill. Passion and purpose and principles first though!

On Maintaining Focus

Question: How do you stay focus with two projects?

Dorsey: I look to build a lot of consistent routine. Same thing every day. Allows a steady state that enables me to be more effective when I do have to react to something out of band.

His Top Three Mentors

Question: Hey Jack! Who are three of your top mentors?

Dorsey: Ray Chambers, Bob Iger, Lauryn Hill (who I haven’t met but learn a lot from!)