How Elon Musk Could Transform Twitter
Eight years ago, I liked a stranger's tweet on Twitter. We exchanged DMs. Today, that stranger is now my wife and we have two kids! So Twitter has a special place in my heart and I'd love to see it thrive. As Elon Musk nears taking the company private, here are some ideas for its future.
Elon says he can unlock the full potential of Twitter because he's experienced it firsthand. He's mastered the art of going direct to his audience, communicating with authenticity, and having fun.?
He's also experienced the challenges of Twitter firsthand, at an extreme level like few others. Fake accounts, crypto scam, impersonation scams, and much more than any one of us could likely imagine.
The key question: How do more people experience the benefits of Twitter, while simultaneously sparing them the challenges that become more pervasive with growth?
As Yishan Wong, former Reddit CEO, pointed out, taking this on would be pure hell.
But unlike most people, Elon has sought out hell (remember "production hell" at Tesla?) and found a way to thrive.
Twitter would massively benefit from privatization. As a public company, their current focus is (rightly so) on revenue and profitability. Not necessarily user experience, user value, and content quality.?
You can see this in their earnings reports, which emphasize monetizable DAU (mDAU). The true north is how many of their users they can monetize, not how many are having a quality, safe, and valuable experience.
The three priorities for a privatized version of Twitter could be: Talent, Health, and Premium.
Talent: Twitter has 7,500 employees and a stock-based comp of $2.21B (2021), which is 11% of revenue. By comparison, Tesla's SBC is 3.9% of revenue. Twitter's on the high end of any benchmark.
Many employees will likely leave if Elon's acquisition is successful. This could be a healthy change.
Adopting Brian Armstrong's mission-focus ethos could help drive further cultural improvements for those who stay.
Elon would bring the same kind of inspiration, focus, and execution that he's brought to Tesla, SpaceX, etc. Imagine that energy at Twitter. He's going to transform the culture and attract a new kind of talent with long-term incentives.
Health. Elon's talked about the importance of free speech. There's also quite a bit of work to do cleaning up the platform.
Optional verification is a great start to scale quality.
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Scaled verification will allow users to filter their feeds accordingly (e.g., show me tweets only from verified accounts and/or accounts I follow).
When you only see content from real people (vs bots), the signal to noise will increase by an order of magnitude.
Elon hinted that Twitter Blue could offer this verification service. Definitely. And Twitter can do much more when it comes to monetization that is more aligned to value.
Premium. Twitter has failed to capture value from its users in any meaningful way beyond ads, which are generally misaligned with user-value.
Today, Twitter has so much utility and there is significant willingness to pay, but there are no real value props to meet this latent demand. I recommend three subscriptions:
Twitter Blue: Entry-level, $2-3/mo. Gets you basic account verification and the bundle of low-value features today (e.g., change app icon).?
Twitter Plus: Mid-level, $10-15/mo. Gets you all the above plus an optional ad-free version. Twitter's current ARPU is $20 (WW) - $65 (US) so this could still at least 2x equivalent user revenue.
Twitter Pro: For the professionals who rely on Twitter (journalists, investors, executives). $100+/mo. Bundle "consume+author+distribute" tools e.g., ensure your tweets are distributed to x% of followers, AI-generated lists, Typefully add-on, Pro badge on profile.
Twitter Pro might be a niche but there is a nontrivial number of people who would happily pay for this service, and in turn generate even more value for the 99.9%.?
After MSFT acquired LinkedIn, we shifted the focus from quantity to quality. No longer a standalone public company, we could optimize for the long-term.
This is Twitter's opportunity now.
By taking Twitter private, Elon can institute a long-term view that allows this platform to thrive in a way that the current structure doesn't encourage.
Very excited for the next chapter, and I hope my kids can some day appreciate Twitter too.
If you have ideas for the future of Twitter, please share them in the comments!
Content and Social at MongoDB, former #Stanford and #Amazon
2 年Still my favorite love story ??
Craft.co | Supply Chain Risk Management and Intelligence
2 年Brilliant as always. Great piece Brian! Can’t wait to read Part 2: Twitter/Elon/Free Speech ??
A.I. Writer, researcher and curator - full-time Newsletter publication manager.
2 年No way!
?? Product at Guideline | ?? Naval Officer Veteran | ?? Linkedin Alum
2 年Brian Rumao thoughtful and great recommendations. I think a subscription service (versus ads) is the right monetization model for them if they go private. There are a many other support tools they can build and monetize as well.
Creative, Versatile and Bilingual Microsoft Certified Professional (.Net), Systems Test Lead / Offshore Project Mgr.
2 年?????????????????? IMHO, even if Elon Musk makes Twitter's censorship ALGORITHM OPEN SOURCE, he will still have to bend his knees to TSLA stockholders,? Paying Advertisers & sponsors like Big Pharmas who will still have more influence on the platform like they already do on Facebook, Google, Wikepedia, Snopes, Hollywood, and the Oscars, etc. and will still censor ANY Non-Mainstream Media narratives posts such as America's Frontline Doctors or "Vacc!ne Hesitancy"? posts...or TWITTER will go bankrupt as he is financing with not his own personal money but $44 billion of his personal TSLA stock in loans, etc. in a very complicated financing deal.... https://www.tmz.com/2022/04/25/elon-musk-new-owner-twitter-43-billion-offer-accepted/?adid=social-fb "Will Twitter become like Google as the 4th or 5th Branch of Government and threaten DEMOCRACY?" What's scarier than C0V!D-19 is censorship of Mainstream News Media AND Social Media as BOTH the Judge and Jury of information AND misinformation on what we hear and see on newsfeeds and search results in order to skew VOTES and pursuade public opinions (and brainwash us) in the upcoming POTUS Elections with BIASED censorship. Dr. Robert Epstein predicted Google Search Algorithm Would Shift 10% of Voters to Make Trump a 'Blip in History' and it indeed did just that! Quote from an Independent Journalist: "Google may seem like an innocent, albeit fabulously wealthy, corporation. But go a little deeper, and they start to look more like an intelligence agency. Just the sort of shadowy group that lives outside the law, wielding more power than any branch of the government... including the president. You see, no institution collects more of your personal data. Google has a complete file on who you are; including where you work, where you shop, who you vote for, what you eat, what you watch, and who you associate with. And by having a complete record of every website you’ve ever visited, they create a unique profile based on your most private and intimate secrets. You may think the Internet is a "free information zone," where everyone has the chance to say and read whatever they want. If only that were true. By censoring Internet content, Google acts as both judge and jury, with no oversight from the government. I know this because it happens to me all the time. Try publishing anything about alternative health or anti-aging medicine. Or even sending an email to a list of your own subscribers. I've had Google shut down email access to the people choosing, and in some cases paying, to And by having a complete record of every website you’ve ever visited, they create a unique profile based on your most private and intimate secrets. They even control what you see and don’t see on the Internet, including YouTube and Gmail. Once, I published an article about the life-saving amino acid l-arginine. This harmless molecule helps relax your blood vessels to improve circulation and oxygen delivery. But Google "flagged" this email and immediately cut off access to my readers. When we spoke to someone at Google, they announced, "Everyone knows arginine is a steroid. Bodybuilders use it all the time." For a moment, I was speechless. I was on the phone with someone who not only had the power to shut down my business, but who was also pretending to be a doctor. While it's true that some bodybuilders may use arginine to get that extra "pump" during a workout, it's ridiculous to call arginine a "steroid." Steroids, at least the ones used by bodybuilders, are sex hormones like testosterone. Arginine is a simple amino acid created by your own body. It's like looking at an umbrella and calling it a rocket launcher. Yet these are the people who decide what you're allowed to see, what you're allowed to think, and what you're allowed to respond to. And this is all happening behind the scenes, and outside of our Constitutionally-protected rights as American citizens." ? - Quote from an Independent Journalist https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/07/10/dr-robert-epstein-google-will-shift-10-of-voters-to-make-trump-a-blip-in-history/amp/