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What are the parts of Twitter that can be sold off, while retaining a profitable core? They've already shut down (Periscope, Vine) or sold off everything else a

What are the parts of Twitter that can be sold off, while retaining a profitable core? They've already shut down (Periscope, Vine) or sold off everything else apart from the core bird app

a4isms 4y ago
Precisely. (I did not actually mean to suggest that Musk needed to follow the original LBO strategies, I was just saying that the end of the 80s LBO frenzy happened when those strategies begun to fail with massive LBOs. It's 35 years later. Musk will invent new strategies to win or fail.)
toomuchtodo 4y ago
That’s one of the LBO playbooks, but it’s not the only method. In this case, Musk believes he can trim the fat and make Twitter profitable. But if advertisers flee and he thinks he can rely on verified payments alone, everyone on HN who signals interest for a social network they pay for will get to see how viable such a business model truly is. CircleCI is a recent example of this PE play.
- sidibe 4y ago
  > everyone on HN who signals interest for a social network they pay for will get to see how viable such a business model truly is. Let me get ahead of you there. They would only pay for a quality product which Twitter is definitely not, as a ruiner of modern discourse. Of course there's also the catch that there are no quality products anymore. The whole world of products is devolving at almost the speed of Google Search. But definitely paying is the superior business model
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
cma 4y ago
The thinking in April was probably they can sell off a bunch of crypto tokens they create. Some of his texts reference this or using it to pump Doge.
Ancapistani 4y ago
I can't think of anything, but Twitter is responsible for a lot of major projects out there. Bootstrap comes to mind - and while that's not something I foresee them "selling", a company large enough to produce a F/OSS project of that size and complexity surely has any number of large, mature products that they could sell or monetize. Also, the key part of the LBO playbook isn't making quick cash from selling off assets - it's divesting the company of cost centers and investing heavily in profit centers. If you're able to sell the things that aren't making you money, all the better.

What are the parts of Twitter that can be sold off, while retaining a profitable core? They've already shut down (Periscope, Vine) or sold off everything else apart from the core bird app

a4isms 4y ago

Precisely. (I did not actually mean to suggest that Musk needed to follow the original LBO strategies, I was just saying that the end of the 80s LBO frenzy happened when those strategies begun to fail with massive LBOs. It's 35 years later. Musk will invent new strategies to win or fail.)

toomuchtodo 4y ago

That’s one of the LBO playbooks, but it’s not the only method. In this case, Musk believes he can trim the fat and make Twitter profitable. But if advertisers flee and he thinks he can rely on verified payments alone, everyone on HN who signals interest for a social network they pay for will get to see how viable such a business model truly is. CircleCI is a recent example of this PE play.

sidibe 4y ago
> everyone on HN who signals interest for a social network they pay for will get to see how viable such a business model truly is. Let me get ahead of you there. They would only pay for a quality product which Twitter is definitely not, as a ruiner of modern discourse. Of course there's also the catch that there are no quality products anymore. The whole world of products is devolving at almost the speed of Google Search. But definitely paying is the superior business model
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

cma 4y ago

The thinking in April was probably they can sell off a bunch of crypto tokens they create. Some of his texts reference this or using it to pump Doge.

Ancapistani 4y ago

I can't think of anything, but Twitter is responsible for a lot of major projects out there. Bootstrap comes to mind - and while that's not something I foresee them "selling", a company large enough to produce a F/OSS project of that size and complexity surely has any number of large, mature products that they could sell or monetize. Also, the key part of the LBO playbook isn't making quick cash from selling off assets - it's divesting the company of cost centers and investing heavily in profit centers. If you're able to sell the things that aren't making you money, all the better.