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Installing software is installing an idea.
You can read a book about how to take photographs. Or you can install Instagram, which guides your hand every step of the way.

Software as an implicit teacher.
What would a software-enabled book look like?

One that didn't just teach you a skill ("How to take photos") or tell you how to live ("The 10 Commandments"), but that essentially had an app embedded within?
Many values of software are implicit. For example, we take for granted that you can individually configure:

- your settings
- your profile photo
- the prices of items in your online store
- and many similar variables

You don't need to subject yourself to a bureaucratic process.
One of the most important tensions for Silicon Valley is the incredible ease of building in the cloud vs the incredible difficulty of building on the land.
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Balaji S. Srinivasan
@balajis
For everyone who thinks the Instagram deal was a no-brainer:

- Instagram raised at $500M the day before Zuck offered $1B
- $1B was 25% of FB’s $4B cash on hand
- It was weeks before the FB IPO
- The board wasn’t consulted
- Instagram had no revenue

This was not an easy call!
Let me warp you back to the distant era of 2012...

“Why would Facebook pay $1 billion for a company with no revenue?”

“With Facebook’s public offering...only a few weeks away, spontaneous and improvisational business moves become more curious.”
Jon Stewart’s reaction was typical.

“A billion dollars of money? For a thing that kind of ruins your pictures? The only Instagram worth a billion dollars would be an app that instantly gets you a gram...”
geekwire.com/2012/jon-stewa…
Read 6 tweets
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Balaji S. Srinivasan
@balajis
The goal of every massive hit in the 2000-2019 timeframe was to go from product to platform.

The goal of every massive hit in the 2020+ timeframe will be to go from product to protocol.
Binance is a pioneer here with BNB.

It’s the best example of launching a protocol in a scrappy startup style.

BNB initially only had value server-side at Binance.com. So they could iterate fast on features like a typical web app. Then they launched their own chain.
Turning a token into a protocol is a form of progressive decentralization. Iterate on features, then freeze and decentralize.

Call this the “Lean Protocol” approach to crypto development.

Amusing portmanteau of the Lean Startup and the Fat Protocol thesis!
Read 3 tweets
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Balaji S. Srinivasan
@balajis
Checking your privilege = boosting their status
In other words, those trained at elite universities to repeat slogans like this do not actually object to status hierarchies.

Their goal is to look down on you — the privilege checked is never their own.
The hard way to gain status is to build something, to accomplish something, to add value.

The easy way is to accuse someone else of being a bad person.

It’s a status-acquisition hack, quick way to gain relative status.

Changing incentives here is key...
Read 3 tweets

Related threads

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Shuvi Shrivastava
@shuvi
“When we treat a man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(A thread, like most threads, that cherry-picks available data to make a point 🤭)
In 1965, Harvard psychologist Robert Rosenthal led a study wherein they gave students from kindergarten through fifth grade a cognitive ability test, post which they notified the teachers about the 20% who showed potential for intellectual “blooming”
When they retook the test a year later, the bloomers outgained their peers by 15 IQ points in the first grade and 10 in the second. Two years later, the bloomers were still outgaining their classmates. They got smarter - and at a faster rate.
Read 11 tweets
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Nigel Dollentas
@nigeldollentas
HOW TO UPGRADE YOUR LIFE 2019 (MEGATHREAD)

I don't care where you are in life.

This thread WILL BENEFIT you.

I'll talk about:
Actions to take
Books to read
Mindsets to adopt
AND MORE

FOR FREE.

Merry Christmas To You All :)

So sit back
relax
RT

And read on
1. Inside First

While it's okay to make SHORT-TERM sacrifices in health to get ahead when you're young,

Make your health your priority.

It affects LITERALLY EVERY other aspect of your life.

In everything that you do, YOU are the common denominator.

So treat yourself well
1a. Sleep

You hear about it so often because it REALLY is that important.

Enough sleep reduces/prevents virtually every illness, more energy, less weight, stable mood, etc.

Not enough is the opposite.

Next will be some ways to improve sleep:
Read 59 tweets
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unseen1
@unseen1_unseen
I remember reading a Tom Clancy book decades ago called. Red Storm Rising. In it, Tom explained the difference between the Soviet and American warfighting. The soviets were regimental and followed the battle plan regardless of changes on the ground. They just keep plugging away.
If half the division gets destoryed the other half would keep to their roles in the battle plan.They weren't good at adapting to changes on the ground. Now, I don't know if that was true or not but it's what he wrote. Of course, the book was fiction so take it how you want.
However, I am seeing the modern left act the same way today. The media, the Senate Dems, the Quislings within the GOP. All continue to follow the battle plan of resistance as they are being wiped out.
Read 13 tweets
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🍍 why are humans?? 🙀
@sharanvkaur
#book

The Gift of Fear, by Gavin de Becker
"Predatory animals devour prey in order to convert flesh into fuel. Most human predators, however, seek power, not food. To destroy or damage something is to take its power. To push a pie into the face of the world's richest man is to take his power, if only for a moment."
Chapter 1 opens with a play-by-play of Kelly's interaction with a stranger. She's heading home with her hands full, when a bag gives way, and a young man appears, offering his help. He talks too much, insists on following her up, and into her home. He rapes and almost kills her.
Read 22 tweets
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Sizhao Yang
@zaoyang
1/ Everyone knows about "deliberate practice" "grit", but how do you apply these tactically. Physical sports like basketball have drills and habits that you can apply and idols like MJ or Lebron. Are there the equivalent? Meaning what habits do you need to unlearn and learn?
2/ First, we have to see what people do normally to study subjects. I'll specifically focus on STEM subjects as the world increasingly become more "technical" for children and adults.
3/ These concepts are with full attribution to @lhtl_mooc, Cal Newport, books about habits of Darwin, books about habits Leonardo Da Vinci, Josh Waitzkin, and there are probably concepts leakage from other books/articles as well.
Read 52 tweets

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