In 2013, Ponting left Mumbai Indians captaincy mid season & handed it over to a youngster

Everyone thought he’s lazy & would do a lousy job as captain

To their SHOCK, he went on to win 5 IPLs & the T20 World Cup as Captain!

Here’s what makes Rohit Sharma a special captain: A🧵 When you see an MS Dhoni, a lot of people could understand his captaincy genius.

The tactics, the intuitive game changing, the calmness and support he gave to his troops.

When you see a Virat Kohli, you could understand the captaincy smarts

In 1997, a 66 yr old retired engineer was given the MISSION to build DELHI METRO in 10 years

Everyone thought he'd FAIL as he was too old for the job.

He SHOCKED them by creating the most ADVANCED Metro system in the world, in just 7 years!

Who's up for a Story?🧵👇🏼 This isn’t just a normal “Case Study”, it is the story of a great man from through the eyes of a 9 year old kid.

The kid being me of course.

In class 4, we had a chapter named the “Metro Man”

I just got fascinated by him. Here’s how he built this…

In 2008, Facebook wanted to take over Twitter, but they refused

Zuck threatened to copy and destroy it if they don't sell

14 years out, young people have abandoned Facebook, while Twitter usage is at all-time high

Here's why Twitter won while FB lost its cultural relevance:

Facebook literally had it all:

All the features + every person on the planet joining it + had all your friends on it

But twitter was just a 140 character text site to interact with strangers.

Now, it’s weird to find someone who uses Facebook, but Twitter is highly relevant.

This happened because of 3 main cores of Twitter that we’ll discuss one by one:

👉🏼 Community building VS Community transfer

👉🏼 Simplicity & guarding the core proposition

👉🏼 Short-form text can stand the the test of time

First core:

Twitter started as a simple site to share information or “microblog”.

And Facebook was built to connect with people you already knew

Facebook made you bring your pre-built network (friends and family) on the platform.

Twitter breeds a new network on its platform.

Facebook at its core was meant as a platform to “connect”.

Twitter was meant to be a platform to share.

This is the basis for Twitter’s long survival and slow growth, while Facebook’s slow irrelevance.

Because there’s a limit to how much you can connect and talk with the same set of people.

There’s a limit to how much you feel like finding out what someone else is doing.

But there’s no limit to the amount of information that can be distributed and consumed.

Facebook restricted you to the people you already knew.

Twitter made it seamless to get in direct contact (where your reply is a tweet in itself) with new people.

Twitter a heaven for people who seek learning.

You can learn from the older wiser people here, while staying closer to your generation, all at the same time.

No other platform has been able to master this.

Snapchat is completely from youngsters to sext or something

Facebook is for the old

LinkedIn is for the professionals (closest in this sense to Twitter)

And Instagram is becoming another Facebook it's only a matter of time

Second core:

In the chase to give people more and more options companies often forget that humans dig simplicity.

Twitter didn’t try to do everything on one platform.

They were a simple text sharing platform, and they maintained that simplicity at the core of the product.

They did introduce a lot of things here and there, but the core value proposition of the product i.e. short form text content was well-guarded.

As the consumption patterns changed, other platforms became forced to comply.

Facebook focused more on video.

Insta launched video, and now reels has made Insta abandon its core offering: photos.

In all this mess, Twitter stayed focused on its core.

Facebook was never meant to be “anyone can be a mass distributor/creator” platform.

The whole product was designed in a way that you had to open a page for building your own creator thing and that involved a lot of friction.

But on Twitter, anyone could tweet and create a following from the start.

The product is frictionless for you to breed your own community.

It is designed not to just make you broadcast something, but to spark conversations.

This creates a lot of layers of network effect.

Third core:

Twitter can even survive the attention deficit storm created by TikTok and Insta reels.

Because Twitter makes you a concise writer.

That restriction helps in quick consumption and that is the only way how text can beat video.

Plus text is extremely easy to produce.

Extremely busy people who might need a light, a good camera and a setup for making reels or Youtube videos, can easily use twitter to share what’s on their mind.

Easy creation with easy consumption gives Twitter a chance against video.

If you liked this read do Repost🔄 and follow me @aryan_kochhar for more❤️
Also, I’m writing the next one on X. How this rebranded product is being positioned very differently from twitter and we’ll explore if this move by Elon is a game changer or not.

TikTok's biggest competitor isn't Instagram or YouTube

It's GOOGLE

Here's how Tiktok is replacing Google as the most used search engine in the world: We don't have Tiktok in India, but a lot of people who have it in their country call it a better search engine than Google.

They say it has completely moulded their behaviour.

But how? I think I know the answer…

India has no dating culture!

Yet dating apps like Tinder and Bumble make more money from India than most western countries combined

Here's what’s really happening behind the doors: I broke it down and found two core reasons behind this:

👉🏼  Counter Culture effect

👉🏼  Efficiency for something completely deprived to males

We’ll go over them one by one…

I read 57 books this year!

As daunting as it sounds, it's pretty doable

Here's a simple method to read more books in 2023: Truth be told, I couldn't even manage to read 2 books in the year before that, but a few simple changes made a big difference...

Minimalism can change your life!

But it's not about buying or owning less. That's a lie you've been told.

Here's the real truth about it (that'll make your life more fulfilling): For me minimalism is a strive for "enough". Not less, definitely not "more", but "enough".

Socrates said,"The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less."

This isn't true minimalism according to me...

Do you think AI will ever be able to eat up most of our jobs and do them better? I think it most certainly will in our lifetime.

We don't have to worry that much because we're already a very flexible generation. Especially the people on twitter know how to improve their skills and do more things than they already do.

Kunal Shah said that not having money to eat food for days changed him!

Money became a medium, not something he attaches emotions to.

Here's what most of us have got wrong about money and how to fix it: A few years ago a very close uncle (who is super rich btw for the context of this story) said that he’ll get his kids settled, and give a miniscule part of his wealth to them, to make sure they work for their own wealth themselves.

In 2008, Facebook wanted to take over Twitter, but they refused

Zuck threatened to copy and destroy it if they don't sell!

14 years out, young people have abandoned Facebook, while Twitter usage is at all-time high

Here's why Twitter won while FB lost its cultural relevance: Facebook literally had it all:

All the features + every person on the planet joining it + had all your friends on it

But twitter was just a 140 character text site to interact with strangers.

Now, it’s weird to find someone who uses Facebook, but Twitter is highly relevant.

Stop trying to make your parents proud of yourself!

Here’s why: Human sentiment is the last thing that should be traded.

This is the extremes of commoditising a beautiful bond, making love a transactional exchange.

In 2015 this guy shut his office & moved to Japan after his startup failed!

Now the same startup Notion has over 30 million users, with billion dollar companies completely running on it

Here’s how he did it: First we need to understand the concept of invention.

There are two ways to invent something.

One is to make a new iteration of an existing product.

Like Google Docs: made a reiteration of a microsoft word file which can be synced and shared in real-time.

MS Dhoni is the only cricket captain in history to win all ICC trophies

His remarkable calm under extreme pressure earned him the title of Captain Cool

2 years since he retired, the secret to this calm still remains a mystery

Here's the mental model he used (that you can too): I hate to break it for you, but our Captain Cool isn’t that calm in reality.

And that actually is the best part!

MS Dhoni’s calm isn’t induced by some god level meditation, or some Buddhist practice that he does.

It is the result of simple mental conditioning:

Kunal Shah calls curiosity the most underrated superpower

But schools and colleges do a horrible job teaching you this

here’s how you can also develop/regain your curiosity: I won't bore you by a lot and just talk about 3 shots of curiosity that changed me.

No big deal, just 3 shots:

Steve Jobs used this marketing tactic to sell 2.2 billion iPhones:

Exclusivity.

Here’s the science behind it and how he used it: Our chase for exclusivity is one thing that’s never going to change!

The mediums might change, this want will last.

This irresistible desire to be above everyone else in the room.

The desire to be a part of something everyone can’t ever be.

India has no dating culture!

Yet dating apps like Tinder and Bumble make more money from India than most western countries combined

Here's what’s really happening behind the doors: I broke it down and found two core reasons behind this:

👉🏼  Counter Culture effect

👉🏼  Efficiency for something completely deprived to males

We’ll go over them one by one…

In 1997, when Steve Jobs returned to Apple, it was about to COLLAPSE.

Michael Dell said “Steve, SHUT DOWN Apple & return all the money”

Steve replied with the sweetest REVENGE in history by creating the most valuable company on the planet!

Who’s up for a story?🧵👇🏼 When he entered Apple, he had one simple plan in mind: Decluttering!

The thing plaguing Apple was:

1. People at the top
2. Too many middle managers
3. Products
4. Culture and core values

He knew if he could solve these, Apple would be back!

It's funny how we do it for the ones underestimating us, rather than for the ones who are rooting for us. Do it for the latter! While saying this someone just underestimated me. I asked my parents to never hide when someone says such things for me.

It fired me up!! Love this feeling...

In 1997, a 66 yr old retired engineer was given the MISSION to build DELHI METRO in 10 years

Everyone thought he'd FAIL as he was too old for the job.

He SHOCKED them by creating the most ADVANCED Metro system in the world, in just 7 years!

Who's up for a Story?🧵👇🏼 This isn’t just a normal “Case Study”, it is the story of a great man from through the eyes of a 9 year old kid.

The kid being me of course. In class 4, we had a chapter named the “Metro Man”

I just got fascinated by him. Here’s how he built this…

Education system failed me!

I used to be extremely curious in school but JEE killed it.

But being on twitter and my startup helped me gain it back…

here’s how you can also develop/regain your curiosity. A thread🧵 I won't bore you by a lot and just talk about 3 shots of curiosity that changed me:

Elon Musk bought $3 billion worth of twitter shares & became the largest shareholder

to revive freedom of speech for the world

what made him do this? A thread🧵 If you’ve seen Elon’s stock portfolio, he has just one stock: Tesla.

This gives us an idea that he isn’t the investor kind.

If he ever invests in something, it would be for something bigger.