Former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo explains how public equity analysts prioritized monthly active user growth over financial performance during Twitter's early public company days.
Prediction Open · timeframe May 2031
Costolo: SpaceX will acquire Tesla
“I think SpaceX, I am one of the people that believes SpaceX will buy Tesla.”
Prediction Held up
Costolo: SpaceX could be worth over $2T on day one
“When SpaceX goes public, and I think it'll actually, could you could, it could end up being worth over two trillion dollars on day one, whether that's a fake price or not.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Costolo: OpenAI commitments exceed $1T without revenue to back them
“When you go and run on the numbers, it adds up to crazy over a trillion dollars worth of commitments that don't have the, you know, and you don't see the revenue model or growth yet to back it up.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Costolo: OpenAI will pop on IPO day but face intense quarterly scrutiny
“It will still do really, really well on day one because people are going to be like, it's the next stigma. It's the next Cerebrus. I can't, I, you know, I haven't been able to buy secondary before I want to be an investor. You have to own one of these things, …”
Opinion
Costolo: Nikita Bier's product instincts rival Kevin Systrom and Evan Spiegel
“Nikita has an extraordinary instinct for product that I think only, I would say, Kevin Systrom and maybe, you know, Evan Spiegel with his initial instinct for Snapchat stories are comparable.”
Insight
Costolo: Advertising is undefeated because ARPU far exceeds premium subscriptions
“Advertising is undefeated as a business model. What you end up finding is that the average revenue per user is just much, much higher than you can get from a premium subscription.”