Twitter is earning bupkis, which means that all this is being paid for by investors. How are they justifying this?

There's an argument that perception matters, I suppose. For instance, banks spend a lot on making their public buildings seem solid and impressive to bolster confidence in them, when so many of their products are built on air.

Twitter is similarly intangible, so perhaps they're trying to say that they're an impressive company by having an impressive building. If that's the case, I think this backfires, by saying the opposite. It all looks and smells (er, in a non-toxin fashion) of the Aerons of the late 1990s. Even Fog Creek held off on their developer-focused space until they could afford it.

Is there really no better return that could have been made on that cash? (Could it perhaps have bought a "Remember Me" checkbox that remembers me?)