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Steve Faktor Profile picture
Steve Faktor
@ideafaktory
Strategist, author https://t.co/0Ayuoxr2k7, founder https://t.co/7iiAMqqhHt, podcaster https://t.co/9EFKvsSFSR, ex-exec @AmericanExpress @Citi @Mastercard, rants on trends/tech/econ
Apr 2, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Interesting thread breaking down Twitter's algorithm. The Twitter Homogenization

Knowing what Twitter's algorithm likes & doesn't will make users please/game it, the way students do teachers for grades, TV execs select programming, & how SEO & clickbait work.

Algorithmic speech is not free speech, even when transparent.
Feb 28, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
The Productivity Paradox

Much of "productivity" is *theft of productivity* from others.

Productive legislators, content creators, game developers, lawyers, influencers, marketers, athletes, divert time & attention from others' productivity to casual consumption or admin. The question is what are we optimizing for?

If it's jobs, then loss of productivity creates a need for more workers.

If it's personal satisfaction, you'd want as much focus as possible.

If it's economic strength, productivity must focus on exportable categories/activities.
Feb 16, 2023 • 22 tweets • 8 min read
The Great Replacement?

I thought this would go away. It hasn't. A quick thread on what I think is really happening, from an Economics POV.

Start w/this post. Like most scoring systems, it's highly subjective & suggests a misguided interpretation of what's happening today.
1/ The Great Replacement Theory came to light in the US in Charlottesville, where white supremacists chanted "The Jews will not replace us" & other variants.

What they were alluding to is a conspiracy that Jews (who they think run everything) want to replace whites w/minorities.
2/
Feb 4, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I'm reading Confessions of an Economic Hitman. Have to admit, it's taking a toll on me.

If even ½ is true (based on history, I'd bet it is), it's hard not to feel powerless & cynical in the shadow of immense soulless forces behind global exploitation & our simplistic narratives. Image The more I think about Confessions of an Economic Hitman, the more naive cryptocurrency becomes.

In a world where we use dollar-debt to control third world nations, thinking we'd just surrender that power because libertarian tech bros want to get rich is so preposterous.
Jan 8, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
The re-education of Jordan Peterson by Canada, like that of Jack Ma by China is a state taming forces that threaten its power.

The civic variant of forced apologies by employees whose cultural transgressions threaten revenues.

Compliance is the great societal stabilizer. There is no due process here. Only the thinnest veil of fairness. Decisions have been made in closed rooms. Capitulation & compliance are non-negotiable.

Ironically, it's far kinder than more brutal regimes, where oligarchs rain down from the sky.
Jan 5, 2023 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
How I'd save Bed, Bath & Beyond🧵

First, a reality check:

1) There is no market for selling commodities inside of buildings. This has been true for small businesses killed by giant chains. It's now true for chains. Experience is inferior, data-poor, too expensive vs. online. 2) There is no middle. The population is bifurcating -> upper middle class & sub-middle class. Like Macy's, malls, or The Gap, the middle is dwindling. Especially, when it's non-specialized, undifferentiated. The numbers back that:

Oct 31, 2022 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
There are 4 big reasons for this:

1) Our stage of development
2) Exponential technologies
3) Globalization
4) Market incentives

But there's one big caveat on the horizon...

Short thread... 1) Our stage of development

Most big infrastructure-level tech needs have been met & settled (electricity, phones, mobile, internet, etc). Ditto survival needs (food, housing, transport). Watch Shark Tank to see the flimsiness of what's left.

Oct 30, 2022 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
It's $4.99/month to keep your verified badge...and $499.99/month to bludgeon your enemies with it. $20/month for verification isn't a terrible idea.

There are 360K verified accounts. If ~80% pay, that's $70M/year.

But if verification opens to all, it could easily be 10x or $700M.

But degrading exclusivity will hurt demand.

Interesting times ahead.
msn.com/en-us/finance/…
Oct 29, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I don't think the future is federated social networks. Complexity exceeds benefit for most.

Disrupters won't tweak the existing paradigm (posting X to Y publicly/privately) but innovate:
—mode of exchange
—content generation
—discovery
—reach
—context
—user experience Hey Jeremiah, while there is no single use case, I'm seeing elements popping up everywhere. Some examples:

1) mode of exchange:

Clubhouse was an interesting experiment in audio-only networking.

TikTok's video reply is interesting but likely not prophetic.

In-game Discords.
Sep 6, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Great piece by @ChristineEmba on "effective altruism" & its sister philosophy "longtermism" that absolves adherents from the messiness of helping those on earth today, liberating them to work on existential threats to theoretical citizens of tomorrow.

1/
 washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/… @ChristineEmba To be fair, there are valid counter-arguments.

1) If you created massive value & wealth, why shouldn't you be able to work on whatever projects you choose?

2) Who's to say Musk/Bezos & others aren't right? Maybe we do need some forward thinkers working on future problems?

2/
Jul 6, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Minimum Viable Info

The tweet below got me thinking about an interesting concept: #MVI.

Like MVP (a product with just enough features to be usable by early customers), MVI is the minimum amount of information/data/research/analysis needed to make a viable business decision. All business decisions live on a spectrum.

At the luxury end, giant corporations can hire consultants to boil the ocean for months—for dubious certainty—before deciding or investing.

At the low end, small businesses must sink or swim w/daily, minimally researched gut decisions.
Jun 26, 2022 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
"A half-century..power play..by corporations, Wall Street, govts & central banks, has gone badly wrong...the West..now face[s] an impossible choice: Push conglomerates &..states into..bankruptcies or allow inflation to go unchecked"—@yanisvaroufakis
project-syndicate.org/commentary/inf…

1/7 "Meanwhile, governments were cutting public expenditure, jobs & services. It was..lavish socialism for capital & harsh austerity for labor."

Always interesting to read Yanis's perspective. I agree there's been a hijacking of capital & resulting concentration of power.

2/7
Jun 14, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Good immigration policy isn't that hard.
1—Let in entrepreneurs, top students & educated professionals w/citizenship intent+market need
2—Laborers, market need
3—Asylum seekers, caseXcase
4—Improve nations of migrants we don't need via trade
5—Path for illegals
6—Boot bad actors Except, nobody here seems to want a viable immigration policy.

May 19, 2022 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
How to ruin a good tweet.

"Only #Bitcoin fixes it." .@JeffBooth wasn't looking to take on a Bitcoin horde at this late hour, but I'll accept your challenge in good faith and answer the first part tonight (why Bitcoin isn't the answer), then mute this thread to get some sleep.
Apr 7, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Thought-provoking piece by @traceyfutures on the potential for personal tokenization. I have many thoughts, but 3 issues with tokenization I'll highlight in this short thread:
1) micropayments
2) enforcement
3) interoperability 1) Micropayments

The biggest challenge with the remonetization of the web, as discussed by @bronwynwilliams, is micropayments are friction that will vastly shrink digital interaction volume to only the most essential, until cheaper alternatives arise.

Mar 28, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Pure alchemy. Purer than Bitcoin, Ethereum & other crypto—because it's cloaked in altruism.

Govts & banks drove us to privatized money. We get why VCs want Worldcoin, but few would crave magic if actual money wasn't debased, hoarded & driving inequality.
worldcoin.org Worldcoin is the apex of every VC/startup "change the world" mantra. Silicon Valley once innovated computers, silicon, phones, digital services. Now, it bypasses the pesky irritant of product, moving straight to the fabrication of cash-ish. (Crypto=cashish, part cash & drug.)
Mar 28, 2022 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
I have a feeling...Will Smith is struggling.... ...and Chris Rock might have a new 15 minutes for when I see him live in NYC.
Mar 27, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
I'll posit a different theory:
China is an American/European client-state.

By that I mean, the success of its autocratic capitalism is built on supplying & "borrowing" IP/innovations from democratic nations.

Once that bond breaks, so will its system. "The fearful don't innovate."

China would eventually become the hollow shell of a country that Russia is - maybe worse, because it's not as resource rich - if the innovative free states, that made themselves dependent on China, disappeared.

Mar 3, 2022 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
"There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs."

- Thomas Sowell, 'A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles' For the foreseeable future, oil still runs the world.

Jan 24, 2022 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
The Social Media Conversion Funnel

Getting someone to pay for content or products online depends on:
—depth of relationship between creator & consumer
—relevance & expense of product

Usually, that requires multiple interactions to build trust & most likely....

1/8 ...shifting consumers from shallow platforms to ones w/deeper loyalties (like dating—>cohabitating—>engaged—>married—>house—>kids)

Shallowest to deepest social networks:
TikTok
Pinterest
Instagram
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
YouTube
Podcast
Newsletter
Paid (Patreon/Substack)

2/8
Nov 12, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
When success outpaces mastery, it clouds the path to full potential. I recently saw a comedian whose career just took off. S/he has every ingredient - talent, perspective, drive & intelligence - to be great. But isn't, yet.

2/5