He's a 20-something year old developer. This isn't his comfort zone and did not expect himself to be in this position.
I know I would be terrible if I was in his shoes.
The response seems to be a resounding no.
This call was awful to hear as an entrepreneur. He is not at all clear about what he wants, and I think he's honest when he says it's "mostly a joke" - I'm getting the sense he threw out a strangely-worded scenario hoping that he could perhaps get some money. If he was serious about getting money, and he's primarily a software developer and not a negotiator, it would've been lovely if he had gotten proper counsel for this negotiation.
He is asking for clarification, something you do when you have a good business relationship with someone.
> He wants to sell, shut down, or whatever for a $10M payout.
He doesn't. He is saying that 20$M is clearly overpriced and that if it was true then reddit would come up with a ludricous number like 10M to make that API be turned off. He just uses quiet because reddit described the API use as Loud.
It's not an offer, it's calling someone's bluff out.
Think in poker someone says "my hand is worth 20 million" and you got pretty good cards you would tell them "go all in because I am gonna keep covering whatever you raise" and then they do not go All In, you got a pretty good case to think their initial comment was not true.
Yeah, the conversation is so cringe. Why is he beating around the bush so much ? He wants to sell, shut down, or whatever for a $10M payout. It sounds easy to make that proposition. Instead, he uses terrible verbiage like, "go quiet, I'm joking, opportunity cost, Bob's your uncle, yada yada". Why is he so terrible at talking ? Nothing in the call resembles a sales pitch if he is actually trying to sell a product for $10M.