Well the most plausible path to salvation is probably to issue a shitcoin that he can pump and dump a shitcoin, so I don't think that will have much salience to

Well the most plausible path to salvation is probably to issue a shitcoin that he can pump and dump a shitcoin, so I don't think that will have much salience to the rest of the industry.... That said, I do think it's very likely that 80% of the present value of any given company is derived from work that was done on the very first version. Twitter the product can likely coast as is for a long time. However I think the reason for having large product teams at mature companies working on marginal projects is because the stock price depends on it. Your potential for discovering new S-curves is priced into your revenue multiple. So while a private twitter might be able to find profitability as a 700 person company, theres (probably) no way for them to achieve meaningful growth. As a result, public companies probably wouldn't view this as a viable playbook. However I feel like Elon's public statements (and track record as an eng focused leader) make me doubt this will happen. He seems much more enamored of Hardcore Engineers who can ship new features (ie fart pillows[1]) rather than the ops/business side, so I don't think creating a glorified lifestyle business is something he's interested in pursuing. [1] https://electrek.co/2021/01/19/how-to-make-your-tesla-fart/ https://electrek.co/2021/01/19/how-to-make-your-tesla-fart/