Are the assumptions in this plan really realistic, though? A cornerstone to these numbers seems to be the $12B in subscription revenue from the mysterious Prod

Are the assumptions in this plan really realistic, though? A cornerstone to these numbers seems to be the $12B in subscription revenue from the mysterious Product X with 104M users, hinted to be the ad-free "Twitter Blue" that just launched. (Pricing is pretty consistent as well - $12B in revenue with 104M users implies ~$120/month = ~$10/month.) Subscription-based social networking has been tried before: that was the revenue model for LiveJournal/DeadJournal/uJournal/SomethingAwful/Flickr/Del.icio.us 20 years ago. People do pay for it - but only a couple percent of people will pay for it, and that was for companies that charged more like $10/year rather than $10/month. Worse, social networking is a network-driven business where the utility of the product increases the more people that are on it, so if a subscription-based business model results in fewer total users, you end up losing out to a free ad-supported model. This was exactly how MySpace and Facebook totally took over from LiveJournal & Flickr. It's possible that 20 years makes a difference, and the userbase now is fundamentally different from it was 20 years ago. But I wouldn't bet on it - if anything, the masses are less willing to pay for entertainment than they were 20 years ago, because they have less money. I'd chalk this one up to a businessman with lots of money and experience in other businesses entering a business that he knows nothing about and assuming his experience is transferrable.