Jack Dorsey not only came to campus today to speak to University of Waterloo students, but also to announce that his new company Square will open an office in Waterloo. The co-founder of Twitter made the announcement as part of a speech delivered on campus, saying it was an easy choice to establish a presence in this area, with "its abundant tech sector."
Square's technology that uses smartphones to make credit card transactions was introduced in the United States four years ago and launched in Canada last year. The company hopes to open its Waterloo office in 2014 with about 30 software engineers.
During the first stop of his Canadian visit, Dorsey shared both his successes and failures with local entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial Waterloo students. "“People can put folks who’ve had some success on pedestals and then it becomes unreachable – but there’s actually a lot of mistakes, a lot of left turns along the way,” he told the audience. “As you’re going through, you don’t always see how those things add up."
After his campus visit, Dorsey met with Waterloo Engineering and other students as well as local entrepreneurs for an exclusive lunch at Kitchener's Communitech office.