He's starting a new Bank, "Bank Simple"

From their FAQ:

Why do other banks make it such a pain to transfer money?

Many banks make transferring money from your account painful as they fear losing your deposits. We figure if we make it easy to do the things you want to do, you’ll be happier and less likely to leave. So, transfers are simple with us.

I've always viewed the difficulty of transferring money out of my account as a robust security feature.

It seems a little naive to think this wasn't the direction twitter would go. I guess Google would be out of his list of companies to work for?

i've never understood why some are so averse to ads as a business model in new media... it seems as if facebook/twitter are in a real place to sell me stuff i might actually want, which could be a great service in and of itself.

sure - the execution isn't quite there yet - but it seems we'll get there in the next 5 years? i don't work in the industry so i could be misguided - will the actuality be more akin to a bunch of spam in my twitter feed?

"For a long time, the promise at Twitter was that we were going to look at different ways of making money, and to some degree I feel that hasn’t happened."

In other words, all the hand-waving didn't lead to human-powered flight, so Twitter is looking at the booooring aspect of actually sustaining their business.

This is actually a good timing, there is many people upset by banks behaviour today, that some may be considering moving.

I'm french and I use a bank that was a 2000 internet startup (boursorama ). They didn't start as a bank but as a low cost solution for the money market. So creating a bank as a startup is definitly possible.

It's a better bank than others I have used, but it's still a bank. Their website is powerful but designed like crap though. However all of my money isn't there, as I fear a little bit doing a move I didn't understand (because of crappy design ) and loose everything.

Let's not be snobby about ads. Relevant ads actually help people. I l-l-l-like the ads on google. There I said it.

Why was that so difficult? Simply because my opinion of ads is colored by mass marketed ones that are not relevant the vast majority of the time. I see them, more or less by accident, trapped in a passive moment.

Ads of the future will seem more like helpful suggestions as I go about my day. Look at Kayak. It's essentially nothing but a marketing tool and I love it.

It's an interesting dilemma for every company that is pioneering, isn't it? To Ad or Not to Ad to sustain and to see the idea through.

What else could Twitter do?

I guess working for google would be out of the question.