I started watching the Elon Twitter poll Sunday night, December 18th 2022 and the poll shows Twitter user would prefer that Elon select another CEO to run Twitter.
It’s now 2AM eastern time and the votes continue to trend to Elon finding a replacement.
That CEO whomever it is will of course report to Elon who will remain Executive Chairman (I predict) I doubt Elon will read my list of recommendations but heck, it’s a good thought experiment given Twitter’s immediate need. My list is going to seem really strange and some of these are long shots. Each of these folks brings a different POV and skillset to the challenge of rescuing Twitter.
Being Twitter CEO is a cross between being the President of the US and the new owner of Gawker, which almost happened to me (you’ll be under a microscope and guaranteed to upset at least 40% of the world population regardless of what you do). NONE of the folks below need the stress or the $$, but some of them relish a challenge; and rescuing Twitter is gonna be a challenge.
The CEO Elon picks, and Elon should put the rest of these on the BoD.
- Jason Calacanis I agree Jason would do a great job. But despite him running h is own Twitter poll that was “meh,” on him taking over, I think he’s more happy launching his next fund which allows non-accredited investor to participate. To get a sense of Jason, watch his All In podcast.
- Jeffrey Hayzlett: The former CMO of Kodak and current founder of C-Suite Network is a pure businessperson and marketer, and would take on the challenge because the social impact of someone getting the rescue wrong is dramatic. Of course the upside of getting it right is building a platform that can benefit from the HUGE flexibility of private ownership. Someone needs to make the tough decisions.
- Scott Galloway: Scott has been a fan of the Twitter platform and is a brilliant strategist and marketer. He’s great at understanding and evaluating the tradeoffs required. In my opinion, he’d approach it from the perspective that one can do well by doing good and “with great power comes great responsibility”
- Mike Bloomberg: Similarly to his decision regarding running for president, he wouldn’t do it for fame or $ but because someone needed to step up. He’d hire the right people and lead strategy. Bloomberg knows content and he knows advertising.
- Oprah: Businessperson and master of the content universe. Not sure she wants to jump into the fray of social media, but she’d be great at it.
- Dwayne Johnson: The Rock isn’t just an actor, he’s a brilliant businessperson and well rounded plus philanthropic. He knows social media as a power-user and knows sports with his XFL experience. Does he want the hassle, probably not.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger: A centrist Republican and content creator. He’s also got the fundamentals for running businesses and understands the interaction between content and policy (government)
- Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast): There’s so little negativity in anything Mr Beast does. He’s brilliant and charismatic and as far as I can tell, non-political. Does he need the hassle? Nope LOL.
- Ryan Reynolds: Understands business, content and advertising… No more need be said.
- Ashton Kutcher: VC, investor, actor, and social media maven. Super-smart. Geeky… A no-brainer.
What will come of Twitter?
The next month will likely determine that outcome.
The ad model is surprisingly easy to fix. Take the top 5% of content creators (by impression volume, including retweets) and invite them to be part of the premium ad network. Give them 30% or more of ad revenue if they adhere to content guidelines and check off every post they want to make ad-eligible. Even Chapelle could do that, when he wanted to be less provocative.
Here’s more on the monetization scheme. (previous post)
