Don’t think I’d want the Twitter job (it’s probably a world of pain, 10x more brutal than running for federal office lol) and can think of several others (@elonmusk himself, @DavidSacks) who would be better at it anyways. But if I were CEO here’s how I’d think about it.
First, free speech. The basic principle here is that anything goes, unless it’s illegal or literally putting someone in physical danger. This policy would protect a lot of ugly and unreasonable speech. So be it. No central authority at this scale should police speech.
I suspect @elonmusk bought Twitter mainly because the pendulum had swung too far in one direction. The previous regime was too ideological and untrustworthy. They traded long term cultural stability and healthy discourse for short term political power by silencing their enemies.
No need to elaborate on why free speech is important — others have hashed that out long before us. But this part from Hayek has stuck with me since high school. Many solutions to our current problems are probably outside the Overton window today. 
Second, product. Twitter is incredible — I remember law school classmates in 2010 thinking I was crazy for seeing its potential then. But it’s also more or less unchanged in a decade. Focus is a virtue, but stagnation is not. Twitter has not lived up to its potential.
Good product design is like sculpting a statue. You can’t just start chiseling away and hope for the best. But if you are clear about *what it is*, then it becomes possible to excavate that vision from the stone.
Twitter is a real time information network. That’s what *it is*. It has begun to decentralize The News, but its artificially limited scope has prevented it from being what it could be.
Apple is so powerful because they have designed a system of complementary products. Imagine if Apple had been so pleased with the iPod that they basically just stopped making stuff after that. Well that’s more or less what Twitter did.
If Twitter wants to excavate its David, it should fill its feeds with complementary products. IG, TikTok, and now to some degree YouTube are all fighting over short form content. Twitter started as *the* short form content — now it must develop & monetize longer-form stuff on top
(Obviously Tik Tok, as CCP spyware, should be banned from the U.S. And Twitter should bring back Vine immediately.)
The News has historically been the world’s information network, mostly in the form of video (television) and writing (newspapers). But these formats are obviously not the future.
My Senate campaign this past year focused heavily on online video, esp to gain traction early when no one knew who I was. We got ~13M organic views here on Twitter alone, and yet, Twitter is an awful video platform. YouTube is so lucky no one at Twitter has cared much about video
Twitter has a real advantage because it’s attached to a viral social network driven by people. The other medium of news, writing, is another obviously complementary product. How is Substack not already part of Twitter, not only as a product feature, but a business model?
The era of paid advertising on the internet isn’t over, but it’s clear that the past 20 years has been a period of “raiding the kitchen”, with some devastating consequences for society. We should use products, not be the product. Products should help us, not divide and outrage us
Twitter should continue to pursue product design that aligns the incentives of its users and its revenue, by drastically building out subscription models that benefit both the company, and its creators.
This doesn’t mean advertising goes away, but I think it’s a good goal to make a product that people want to pay for. And to make a product that financially rewards its most productive community members.
The first thing I’d do is talk to @MrBeast. He clearly has a better handle on social products and what young people want than anyone else in the world.
Then I’d talk to @TaylorLorenz. Frankly I can’t stand her, her politics, her affect, etc. But she spoke intelligently about Twitter the other night on an IG live and, in the interest of building a healthy town square, I think there’s a conversation to be had.
I don’t trust the modern left to run Twitter, for obvious reasons. Their authoritarian impulse is too high. But I’d want their input. I’d trust someone actually centrist, or someone on the right who believes in free speech, to actually administer and implement.
That person should prioritize coexistence, rather than take the easy way out and try to decimate enemies. Twitter should be the place where people have the opportunity to change their mind.
There are so many things Twitter can do to grow up and be 10x more valuable to society. Build new things that complement what Twitter is, without ruining what it’s already good at. Rethink and expand the ways it makes money. And bring all sides back to the table.
Finally — the business side. I think in the medium- and long-term, the above approach would make Twitter profitable and way more valuable. But while I don’t know details, I imagine that the immediate financial constraints are pretty severe.
My guess is the hardest part of the job is the near-term economics: making sure Twitter doesn’t go bankrupt and can deal with its debt. Yet only a longer-term product focus can take Twitter to the next level. A tough tightrope, but I wouldn’t bet against Elon or whoever he taps.
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