Twitter founder’s daily routine includes 5am ice baths, fasting and hour-long meditation

He doesn't eat at weekends

(Getty Images for WIRED25)

Silicon Valley magnates are famed for their idiosyncrasies – Steve Jobs famously ate just one type of food for weeks at a time and Mark Zuckerberg only eats meat from animals he’s killed himself – but Twitter founder Jack Dorsey might just outdo them all.

The 42-year-old tech tycoon has revealed the details of his daily routine – and his health and fitness habits are somewhat unusual.

Speaking on the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast in March, Dorsey, whose estimated net worth is $5.3bn (£4bn), explained he doesn’t eat breakfast or lunch.

His only daily meal is “a really big” dinner of either fish, chicken or steak with berries for dessert. Sometimes he has red wine with his meal.

Dorsey added that he regularly fasts at weekends.

“I’ll go from Friday ‘til Sunday,” he told Greenfield. “I won’t have dinner on Friday. I won’t have dinner or any meal on Saturday. And the first time I’ll eat will be Sunday evening.”

Dorsey said: “The first time I did it, like day three, I felt like I was hallucinating. It was a weird state to be in. But as I did it the next two times, it just became so apparent to me how much of our days are centred around meals."

As a result, Dorsey added that he feels “much more focused” and in touch with his mental health.

When it comes to physical habits, Dorsey has a fairly rigorous hydrotherapy routine, which he begins at around 5am each morning.

This involves sitting in a barrel sauna for 15 minutes before entering a 2°C ice bath for three minutes. He usually completes this cycle three times.

“Nothing has given me more mental confidence than being able to go straight from room temperature into the cold,” Dorsey said of his routine. “It just unlocks this thing in my mind. I feel like if I can will myself to do that thing that seems so small but hurts so much, I can do nearly anything.”

Dorsey added that all of his showers are cold showers: "I just don't do hot anymore [...] for me it's been better than caffeine".

The Twitter founder also revealed that he spends one hour meditating each morning (he does another hour before bed), which he describes as “extremely painful and demanding physical and mental work”.

There was a period of time when Dorsey would walk to work every morning “to get as much sunshine as possible”. The route was five miles long and it took him around an hour and 15 minutes.

But Dorsey explained he has started to work from home in the last six months and has replaced his daily walks with seven minute-long HIIT workouts, which he performs in his living room.

“A lot of my routine today is all due to what felt like just had to be done in order to, not only survive but to make sure that I can continue to be performing and continue to be clear,” Dorsey said.

“Some practices have been impactful, some I’m not sure if they’ve been impactful just yet… It only benefits me if I can raise the bar on myself.”