Will People Pay for This?

On October 29, 2022, Elon Musk purchased Twitter. The simple privatization was a public spectacle. Upon closing, Musk wasted no time drawing more attention with his suggestion that maybe Twitter should cost $20/month for verified users. Days later he backed off the price, reducing the cost to eight dollars.

One of Musk’s investors was venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. During the lead-up, Andreessen drew some wonder when he committed two hundred fifty million dollars “with no additional work required.”

The job of a business is to serve customers. The job of an entrepreneur is to figure out how. One mistake entrepreneurs make, said Andreessen, is charging too little. Most businesses don’t charge enough to be sustainable. If no one pays the business doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter what’s sold.

Elon Musk may be Twitter’s new owner, but he is an entrepreneur. Rather than an office at the dining room table and some ideas, he has a collection of code and thousands of employees.

But his question is the same: Will people pay for this?

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