Some Suggestions For Twitter

Twitter And Voice
Free Speech And Just Society
Should Elon Musk Be Owning All Of Twitter?
The Masses, Not Mars
Musk's 44 Billion Dollar Give To Foolish Fascism

My Twitter experience has not changed. Is that a problem? The guy from Mars took over. But my Twitter experience has not changed.

He is being criticized for having bought a 10 billion dollar company for 40 billion. I don't want to go into that. It is certainly a dip. But if it is a startup, it has nowhere to go but up. Although there are plenty of people saying this is his Waterloo. That is the New York Times hyperbola. It is a dramatic statement to make, but people like Paul Graham do not seem to be buying.

Since the early 2010s, I have looked at Twitter and thought, what a waste! So much potential, so little of it realized.

Could Musk be the break Twitter has needed? Or is this Musk's Truth Social?

I just had to say that. I don't believe it. I think Musk might be able to pull it off.

I quite like Twitter. I have an experience on Twitter that I do not have on any other social media platform. And so you are left wanting more.

What is it about Twitter? The brevity? The text? That 1% feel?

How about letting people verify for free? And instead of using government isued IDs letting people use biometric IDs provided by Twitter itself? A selfie? An iris scan? Fingerprint? And you get a checkmark? If not blue, then green. The bots don't have that.

If you can verify your name also with some sort of official ID, you get an additional checkmark. For free.

You could use an assumed name, but it would say so.

The ability to read 10 or 100 or 1,000 tweets at once. How do you read the sentiment?

Real time search engine. Twitter could be tops.

The Twitter archives are a wasteland. So unnecessary.

Why is that? :)

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) November 18, 2022

Some Suggestions For Twitter https://t.co/g1hUjx02PD

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) November 18, 2022

Some Suggestions For Twitter https://t.co/g1hUjx02PD

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) November 18, 2022

Someone referenced the notion that you can't work productively for more than 5 hours/day, and I realized I had always heard that but had no idea what the notion came from.

Googling around you find and endless number of sites linking to each other, but eventually found the study.

— Austen Allred (@Austen) November 17, 2022

Dividing a circle into 7 equal area slices 🍕

Equality in Maths is just beauuutiful 💗 pic.twitter.com/WWTPYgwFq3

— Ayliean (@Ayliean) November 17, 2022

https://t.co/ssmr59GGxI

— Paul Graham (@paulg) November 17, 2022

I know nothing about this movie, but I will see it based on this poster design. pic.twitter.com/yyA6MkeTgR

— Jim Cummings (@jimmycthatsme) November 17, 2022

I just got an email from a founder about an idea that intrigued him but was "probably not a big company." I got excited when I read that. When a founder can't stop thinking about an idea despite it probably not being a big company, it could be a big company.

— Paul Graham (@paulg) November 17, 2022

You might know a thing or two about this.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) November 18, 2022

Carolynn Levy, who invented the SAFE, may be the most influential person in Silicon Valley you've never heard of. She rarely talks to reporters. But no one in the world understands startup law better.https://t.co/xrvMR6Wur7

— Paul Graham (@paulg) November 17, 2022

In the biggest Shopify ecosystem news you haven’t heard:
Giant Tiger, the $2B Canadian Retailer, ripped out their tech stack and replaced it with Shopify Plus, ShipHero and several other modern tech companies. pic.twitter.com/h5bupEmMye

— Aaron Rubin (@AaronandML) November 15, 2022

Introducing the Airbnb 2022 Winter Release pic.twitter.com/SECocjFg4T

— Brian Chesky (@bchesky) November 16, 2022

In both those companies, people die if the software doesn't work right. Do you really think he's not up to managing a social network?

— Paul Graham (@paulg) November 16, 2022

10 yo told me this morning that he didn't know how to do long division. He was out sick the day they learned it. He wants me to teach him. I realized I haven't done it since school myself. I wasn't even sure I was remembering the algorithm right, though fortunately I seem to be.

— Paul Graham (@paulg) November 15, 2022

People have no idea how fast Twitter will evolve

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 16, 2022

Not as hard as rockets.

— Paul Graham (@paulg) November 16, 2022

Putin

Life Is an Accident of Space and Time
Why the U.S. Is Being Ominously Compared to Hungary and Turkey A conversation with Max Fisher, who covers the decline of democracy around the world.

Opinion: Putin is fooling no one -- certainly not Xi In Samarkand, Putin will undoubtedly keep up his triumphant, self-assured demeanor -- but that will fool no one, certainly not Xi, who must be deeply worried about the astonishing collapse of Russia's forces in northeast Ukraine....... Not only is Russia humiliated, Ukraine exuberant, and the West united, but even China, which still expresses support for the Kremlin, is making statements that embarrass Russia. ........ Russia confirmed Xi and Putin would meet on the sidelines of the summit for "very important" talks. China has confirmed Xi's trip, but its foreign minister on Tuesday declined to confirm a meeting with the Russian president. ........ The relationship between Xi and Putin was never one of equals, but now Putin is encountering Xi during one of the most disastrous moments of his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. He will likely seek more support from Xi, who has been generous with words but much less with deeds. ......... China has been reluctant to break the sanctions, or step in to provide a major boost to Russia's dwindling military supplies. If it had, Putin could have avoided the awkward spectacle of seeking weapons from Iran and North Korea, minor, if aggressive powers. .......... Putin needs Xi much more than Xi needs Putin, and that imbalance has grown far greater since their last meeting. ........ he Russian president's suppression of all criticism about the war has taken an expected turn. Those who opposed the "special military operation," have gone to prison, exile or have mostly fallen silent. But now some of the war's most vocal supporters are fuming, enraged by the military's poor performance. (They even call it a "war" -- a word that could not previously be uttered without some consequence.) ........... A strongman cannot afford to be weak, and Putin knows it. ........ For now, there's no chance that Beijing will discard its unofficial alliance with Moscow, even if Russia is a greatly diminished power. Xi wants to be the leader of a global front opposing the US-led liberal democratic order. To do that, he needs to line up support from nations large and small. And Russia remains an important, nuclear-armed nation. ........... Next month, China's Communist Pary will hold its twice-a-decade party congress. Xi, China's most powerful figure since Mao, is expected to secure an unprecedented third term amid a sharp economic slowdown, made worse by his extreme zero-Covid policy. The possibility of a global recession, heightened by Russia's gas wars against Europe, would hit export-reliant China very hard.



Why the U.S. Is Being Ominously Compared to Hungary and Turkey A conversation with Max Fisher, who covers the decline of democracy around the world. ....... That democracy is declining more or less everywhere now. Not necessarily in every country but in every region, in rich and poor countries, old and new democracies. And the decline is incremental but steady, which means that the scale of the change isn’t necessarily obvious until you start looking at the data. ......... What happens is more like what has occurred in Venezuela, say, or Turkey or Hungary. Elected leaders rise within a democracy promising to defeat some threat within, and in the process end up slowly tearing that democracy down. ......... more democracies are in decline today than at any other point in the last century. .......... The United States fits pretty cleanly into what is now a well-established global pattern of democratic backsliding.

Biden: Middle Out

I'm building a clean energy economy from the bottom up and the middle out.

— President Biden (@POTUS) September 14, 2022

आफ्नै नेतृत्वको क्रान्तिले जसलाई निल्यो रुसी राष्ट्रपति बरिस येल्तसिनले गोर्बचोवलाई अपमानित गर्न कुनै कसर बाँकी राखेनन् । येल्तसिनको मात्र के कुरा गर्नु, सन् १९९६ मा रुसी राष्ट्रपतिको चुनावमा उठ्दा गोर्बचोवलाई जम्मा ०.५५ प्रतिशत मत दिएर नागरिकले पनि अपमानित गरिदिए ! ....... १९८५ को मार्च १० मा ७३ वर्षीय पार्टी महासचिव कन्स्तान्टिन चेर्नेको निधन भयो । २८ महिनाको अवधिमा लियोनिद ब्रेज्नेभ र युरी आन्द्रोपोभपछि निधन हुने उनी तेस्रो पार्टी महासचिव थिए । नेताले अस्पतालको शय्याबाट सत्ता चलाउनुपर्ने दुश्चक्र तोड्नुपर्ने, पाको र रोगले जीर्ण भैसकेको नेताको सट्टा युवालाई नेतृत्वमा ल्याउनुपर्ने दबाबमा सोभियत कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी थियो । यसैले त पार्टीको पोलिटब्युरो बैठकमा चार घण्टाको छलफलबाटै ५४ वर्षका गोर्बचोव पार्टी महासचिव चुनिए । ....... २८ वर्ष विदेशमन्त्री रहेका र पश्चिमी दुनियाँमा ‘मिस्टर नो’ भनेर चिनिने आन्द्रेई ग्रोमिकोलाई मन्त्रालयबाट बाहिर जाने बाटो देखाइदिएर गोर्बचोवले एडवार्ड सेभेर्दनाद्जेलाई विदेशमन्त्री नियुक्त गरे । क्यानडाका लागि सोभियत राजदूत अलेक्सान्द्र याकोभ्लेवलाई फिर्ता बोलाई सुधारवादी कार्यक्रमको प्रमुख योजनाकार बनाइयो । ........ जीर्ण–शीर्ण भैसकेको सोभियत अर्थतन्त्र ठोकठाके मरम्मतले अघि बढ्ने देखिएन, त्यसले पूरै ‘ओभरहल’ माग गरिरहेको थियो । अनि सन् १९८६ को सत्ताइसौं पार्टी कांग्रेस बैठकमा गोर्बचोवको ‘सिग्नेचर पोलिसी’ घोषणा भयो— ‘पेरेस्त्रोइका र ग्लासनोस्त’ । ........... सन् १९८५ सम्म सोभियत संघमा सबैभन्दा बढी राजस्व संकलन मदिरा उत्पादन र बिक्रीबाट हुने गर्थ्यो । ‘सुक्खा कानुन’ लागू भएपछि मदिरा बिक्रीबाट संकलन हुने राजस्वमा ह्रास आएकाले यसै पनि कमजोर सोभियत अर्थतन्त्र झनै असन्तुलित हुन पुग्यो । मनमौजी भएर मापसे गर्न नपाउँदा रुसीहरू यसै पनि रन्थनिएका थिए । अल्कोहलको सट्टा मिनरल वाटर सेवन गर्नुपरेको झोंकमा गोर्बचोवलाई कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी अफ द सोभियत युनियन (सीपीएसयू) को ‘जेनेरल सेक्रेटरी’ नभनेर ‘मिनरल सेक्रेटरी’ भन्न थाले । यति सबै भैसकेपछि ‘सुक्खा कानुन’ मार्फत एक कदम अघि बढेका गोर्बचोव दुई वर्षपछि नै लेनिनले भनेझैं दुई कदम पछि हटे, सन् १९८७ मा यो अभियान फिर्ता लिइयो । ......... हजारौं सोभियत सैनिक मुजाहिद्दिनसँगको युद्धमा हताहत हुँदा सोभियत नागरिक चरम निराशामा थिए- भियतनाम युद्धले अमेरिकीमा ल्याएको बेचैनीजस्तै । आर्थिक रूपले पनि सोभियत संघलाई यो हस्तक्षेप निकै भारी हुँदै गइराखेको थियो । गोर्बचोवले अफगानिस्तानबाट बिनासर्त सोभियत सेना फिर्ता गर्ने निर्णय गरे । सोभियत संघको राम्रो पकड रहेका हंगेरी, पोल्यान्ड, चेकोस्लोभाकिया र पूर्वी जर्मनीमा रक्तपातरहित भेल्विट कलर रेभोलुसन (मखमली क्रान्ति) सुरु भयो । पहिलेको सोभियत सत्ताले झैं ती देशहरूमा हस्तक्षेप गर्न गोर्बचोव इच्छुक देखिएनन् । .......... ‘सीपीएसयूको महासचिव पदमा चुनिनुअघिसम्म उनले कुनै त्यस्तो योजना वा भिजन अघि सारेकै थिएनन् ।’ हुन पनि त्यसअघिसम्म उद्धृत गर्नलायक उनको कुनै विचार र सिद्धान्त फेला पार्न सकिन्न । यसैले कतिपयले उनलाई भिजनरहित नेताको उपमा पनि दिने गरेका छन् । ‘ताक दाल्से नी पाइद्योत’ अर्थात् यसै गरी अब अघि बढ्न सकिन्न उनको चर्चित नारा थियो । अगाडि जाने कसरी ? त्यसका निम्ति उनको न कुनै अन्तर्दृष्टि देखियो न तयारी नै । सुधार उनी अवश्य चाहन्थे तर गन्तव्यको पहिचान गर्न सकेनन् । उनी कुशल वक्ता थिए, घण्टौं धाराप्रवाह बोल्न सक्थे । तर भाषणहरू बहुधा अस्पष्ट हुन्थे । जसरी देङ स्याओपिङले आर्थिक सुधारमा मात्रै केन्द्रित भई अजंगको जनसंख्या रहेको चीनको व्यवस्थापन गरे, गोर्बचोवले त्यो बाटो पहिल्याउन नसकेकै हुन् । ............ घटनाक्रमले सत्ताबाट बाहिरिएपछि अपमान खेपेर पनि गोर्बचोव पलायन भई अन्यत्र निर्वासित हुन चाहेनन् । सोभियत संघ विघटनको पूर्वसन्ध्या र त्यसपछि पनि रुसी राष्ट्रपति बरिस येल्तसिनले उनलाई ठोसेको ठोस्यै गरे । उनलाई लाजमर्दो हुने गरी पेन्सन भत्ता उपलब्ध गराइयो, जम्मा ४ हजार रुबल । सन् १९९४ को विनिमय दरबमोजिम त्यो रकम केवल १.३ अमेरिकी डलर हुन्थ्यो । उनको कूटनीतिक पासपोर्ट खोसियो । यतिसम्म कि, उनले सुरु गरेको गोर्बचोव फाउन्डेसनलाई समेत येल्तसिनले केही समय प्रतिबन्ध लगाएका थिए । ......... १९९१ को मार्चमा सोभियत संघमा जनमतसंग्रह गराइयो । जनमतसंग्रहमा नयाँ सोभियत संघको अवधारणाअनुरूप राज्यको नाम ‘यूएसएसआर’ नै रहे पनि सोभियत समाजवादी गणतान्त्रिक संघको सट्टा ‘सोभियत सार्वभौम गणतान्त्रिक संघ’ रहने प्रस्तावलाई ७७.५ प्रतिशत जनताले समर्थन गरे । यद्यपि त्यस जनमतसंग्रहलाई १५ वटा सोभियत गणराज्यमध्ये ६ वटा गणराज्य लिथवानिया, लाटभिया, येस्तोनिया, जर्जिया, अर्मेनिया र माल्दोभाले बहिष्कार गरेका थिए । ............. नयाँ संघीय सन्धिमा हस्ताक्षर गरेपछि सोभियत संघको अस्तित्व नै मेटिन्छ भन्ने डरले कट्टरपन्थी गुट सक्रिय हुन थाल्यो । गोर्बचोव छुट्टीबाट फर्केर मस्को आउनुअघि नै उनलाई अपदस्थ गर्न सकेमा सोभियत गणराज्यहरूलाई नयाँ सन्धि गर्नबाट बचाउन सकिन्छ भन्ने सोचले यो समूहले योजना बनाउन थाल्यो । गुटका प्रमुख योजनाकार तत्कालीन केजीबी प्रमुख भ्लादिमिर क्र्युच्कोभ भए पनि उनको योजनालाई समर्थन गर्ने गोर्बचोवनजिकका धेरै मित्र थिए । ............ गोर्बचोव सिकिस्त बिरामी भएका र कार्यभार वहन गर्न नसक्ने अवस्थामा रहेकाले उनलाई पदमुक्त गरी राज्यमा आपत्कालीन अवस्था घोषणा गर्नुपरेको भन्दै गर्दा गेन्नाडी येनाएभले हात कमाएको दृश्य देख्ने जोकोहीले पनि राज्य विप्लवकारीमा दम छैन भन्ने अनुमान गरिसकेका थिए । .......... येल्तसिनको सहयोगमा १९९१ अगस्त २१ का दिन गोर्बचोवलाई क्रिमियाबाट मस्को फिर्ता बोलाइयो । राज्य विप्लव योजना असफल भएपछि योजनाकारमध्येका एक गृहमन्त्री बरिस पुगोले आत्महत्या गरे भने बाँकी विप्लवकारीहरूलाई त्यसै दिन पक्राउ गरियो । यसरी कट्टरपन्थीहरूको राज्य विप्लव योजना ७२ घण्टा पनि नटिक्दै १९९१ अगस्त २१ का दिन पूरै विफल भयो । ...........कट्टरपन्थीहरूको षड्यन्त्र र सुधारवादीहरूको आक्रामक विरोधलाई उनले व्यवस्थित गर्न सकेनन् । येन–केन–प्रकारेण ७४ वर्षसम्म टिकाइएको शासन व्यवस्था भित्रभित्रै मक्किसकेको थियो । सोभियत संघ विघटनका धेरै कारण हुन सक्लान् तर विघटनको प्रमुख कारक सोभियत गणराज्यहरूको स्वायत्त हुन पाउने अधिकार र जातीय रूपमा विभाजन नै हो । ........ पूर्व सोभियत गणराज्य लगायत वार्सा सन्धि संगठनका अधिकांश देश अहिले युरोपियन युनियन र नाटो सैन्य गठबन्धनमा आबद्ध भइसकेका छन् । ........... गोर्बचोव अधिनायकवादी थिएनन्, नरम स्वभावका नेता थिए । पोलिटब्युरो सदस्य येल्तसिनसहितले विद्रोह सुरु गरेपछि सोभियत कम्युनिस्ट पार्टीको साबिक चलन अनुसार उनले पनि विरोधीलाई दमन गर्न सक्थे तर त्यस्तो केही गरेनन् । भिल्न्युस, बाकु, तब्लिसीमा छुटफुट घटना भए पनि सैनिक बलका भरमा विद्रोहीहरूलाई दबाउने प्रयास कहिल्यै गरेनन् । उनी खासमा शान्तिपूर्ण उपायबाट पुरानो शासन प्रणालीलाई व्यवस्थापन गर्न चाहन्थे ।

Loom

How 9 months of building without success, 2 pivots, and 100s of rejections resulted in Loom:

— Shahed Khan (@_shahedk) September 14, 2022

In reflecting back on the last 7 years, I've become convinced that most founders place too much emphasis on finding the 'perfect' startup idea.

This thread covers the story of Loom—and why you'll probably have to start with an imperfect idea before landing on your winner:

— Shahed Khan (@_shahedk) September 14, 2022

Loom didn’t begin as Loom.

It started around a whiteboard with Vinay, Joe, and myself. We wrote down six ideas, and went with the solution that had the lowest risk & barrier to entry:

A user testing marketplace.

— Shahed Khan (@_shahedk) September 14, 2022

We began building.

7 months in, we only made $600 and learned an important lesson:

Companies generally cared less about advice from experts (what we were selling). Instead, they wanted to hear directly from their own users.

We pivoted. The new idea?

— Shahed Khan (@_shahedk) September 14, 2022

Build a SaaS offering that’d let companies get direct feedback from *their own users*.

As Vinay started to rebuild the product, Joe and I spent weeks cold emailing 300 different companies offering a free trial...

Soon after, we heard back from a research team at Harvard.

— Shahed Khan (@_shahedk) September 14, 2022

They used our product (called OpenTest at the time) to gather insights from 7 students for a campaign.

As a result—they received 7 different videos with various insights.

Instead of sharing these videos back with the entire research team...

— Shahed Khan (@_shahedk) September 14, 2022

Someone at Harvard used the same Chrome extension (built originally for the user testers themselves)

to record a 1-minute summary of the 7 videos.

That 1-minute video is what they shared back with their team.

— Shahed Khan (@_shahedk) September 14, 2022

This wasn’t how our product was supposed to be used.

Yet it was a valuable insight: We realized that people were more interested in using Loom as a communication tool.

When we were able to realize that...

— Shahed Khan (@_shahedk) September 14, 2022

We took the screen and video recording extension, launched it on Product Hunt in June 2016, and had 3k people sign up in the same day.

Which was 2,990 more users than we’d had in the 9 months prior.

— Shahed Khan (@_shahedk) September 14, 2022

A couple things one can take away from our experience:

— Shahed Khan (@_shahedk) September 14, 2022

First, de-stress yourself from “finding the perfect idea”.

It’s impossible to predict how things will go once you start—and it’s better to start and adapt than never launch because you’re worried something won’t work.

— Shahed Khan (@_shahedk) September 14, 2022

Just like cooking, playing guitar, or learning a sport, coming up with the perfect startup idea is something you likely won't get right the first time you try it.

— Shahed Khan (@_shahedk) September 14, 2022

Second, the three traits that got us to Loom were:

1) Intense focus
2) Timing of the market
3) Pure luck

You might build a beautiful product—and it could be good in theory—but without those three things, you'll need to pivot to something that works.

— Shahed Khan (@_shahedk) September 14, 2022

That’s the story of how we came up with Loom: An idea that worked, after a couple that didn’t.

As you build your ideas, you'll hear a lot of advice from outsiders giving you good and bad advice.

My next piece will cover how to 'manage' that advice.

— Shahed Khan (@_shahedk) September 14, 2022

https://t.co/OYGEY8GuQA

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) September 15, 2022

cheap meal pro-tip: eggs and fried rice!

— Mo 🇨🇦 (@The_MoBiz) September 14, 2022