Advices

Business Advice from a young robot to an aspiring entrepreneur

I ask the OpenAI brain for advice on how to run Twitter’s Verified Accounts. The context is Elon Musk’s recent takeover of Twitter and the debacle that ensued when he allowed any account to be verified for $8 per month.

My prompt was this, up to Advice:

I need some advice. I am the new CEO of a major social media platform. We have a feature called Verified Accounts, which ace accounts that have been verified as authentic on our platform. This helps to prevent impersonations of famous people and brands. I think it’s unfair that some users are verified and others or not. It creates a class system that seems unfair to me. But it would be very bad if our platform was polluted with fake and imposter accounts. Because I want to democratize verification, and because I want to increase income from users, I am thinking about charging people to be verified. If they pay us a certain amount each month —say, eight dollars— their accounts will be marked as verified. Do you think this is a good idea? What are the possible downsides to doing this?

Advice:

The advice I got was this:

There are a few potential downsides to charging people to be verified on your social media platform. First, it could create resentment among users who feel that they shouldn’t have to pay to be verified.

Second, it could incentivize people to create fake or imposter accounts in order to try and get around the verification process.

Finally, it’s possible that charging for verification could backfire and actually decrease income from users, if people decide to leave your platform rather than pay the fee.

The General Takeover

I also asked about the whole takeover, and how it should be run. Here’s the prompt:

I need some advice. I am the new CEO of a major social media platform. Unfortunately, we are losing a lot of money right now. I have more employees that I can afford. I think many of them are overpaid and many are unproductive. I need to ensure that the platform remains relevant and stable, and that advertisers on the platform do not leave. In fact, I want to increase income from advertising. The product is currently free, but I’m willing to consider charging users.I think free speech is important, but users and advertisers must believe we are ensuring their trust and safety. Also, should I make radical changes all at once, or do things more gradually?

Advice:

The advice I got was this:

  1. Make sure that you have a clear and concise plan for how to turn the platform around financially. This plan should be shared with all employees, so that they understand the situation and buy-in to the changes that need to be made.
  2. Take a hard look at your employee roster and make sure that you are only paying people who are truly essential to the success of the platform. If there are people who are overpaid or unproductive, let them go.
  3. Consider charging users for access to the platform, or introducing other forms of revenue generation. Free speech is important, but so is ensuring the financial stability of the platform.
  4. Implement changes gradually, rather than all at once. This will help users and advertisers adjust to the new reality of the platform, and minimize any negative impacts on overall usage or income.

To be fair, I cherry-picked the answers a bit, and did some ‘prompt engineering.’ But still, perhaps I could sell consulting services to Elon Musk.