The person that first exposed me punk rock is a billionaire.

Jack Dorsey took me to my first punk rock show in 1993. Yes, that Jack Dorsey, who cofounded Twitter.

We were friends in high school. Ate lunch together every day that we were in the same lunch period. We hung around the same group of guys, and I was even in a fantasy football league that he ran before the internet was much of a thing to me or anyone else that wasn’t as forward-thinking as he was.

Jack had access to his parents’ Volvo station wagon and he picked me to head to downtown St. Louis on a crisp fall night. On our way, he told me to check out this new (to him) band he was into lately, Operation Ivy. The influential punk ska band broke up about five years previous but of course he had a white cassette copy of the band’s “Energy” album when no one else — including me — had heard of Op Ivy. He popped it into the factory-direct tape player in the Dorseys’ old grocery cruiser and I was stunned at the new sound that was hitting my ears. I was intrigued to say the least.

As we approached the exit for the Laclede’s Landing entertainment district, Jack zipped past it by accident. Panicked, we are forced onto a bridge and into Illinois. East St. Louis, Illinois, to be exact. We found a rough-looking (at least to our teenaged eyes) liquor store parking lot to turn around in and ambled back to Missouri where we eventually made it to Bernard’s Pub, which is long gone today. We caught a little but of the unmemorable opener before witnessing the fury of The Didjits, an Illinois punk trio that was fast, heavy and irreverent. Um, sign me up.

Jack would take me to another show in suburban St. Louis at an all-ages venue that was less eventful but I was always grateful that my quiet friend took me to these shows that forever changed my life. I wish I could say I changed his for the better. He did pretty well without my influence.