👉 What Happened on Tech Twitter in April

⚔️Tech celebs shared wild ideas, 🤯people built weird things, 📉Tech had layoffs, 😎Clubhouse FOMO, ✨Tweeter of the Month - Greg Isenberg and more!

Yo! It’s Brett again. Here are the biggest stories from April 2020:

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😎Everyone wanted to get in the Clubhouse

Pre-launch social audio app, Clubhouse created a hurricane of FOMO on Tech Twitter.

Shrug Capital @ShrugCap

~Special Announcement~ We are pre-releasing the month of April in next year’s @ShrugCalendar Early Access: docsend.com/view/5dekiqk

The elite few people with access to the app felt the need to incessantly tweet their hot takes on it.

Check out 🔥The Hottest Takes on Clubhouse for the TLDR (excerpt below).

Sriram Krishnan @sriramkri

I'm changing my name to "Everyone and their mom"

The FOMO was too much for me to bare so I decided to write a song about it called “Clubhouse FOMO”":

📉Layoffs finally came for tech workers

Only a month ago, tech employees were feeling sheltered from the COVID-created chaos.

Kevin Kwok @kevinakwok

People I know who work in tech generally seem to think minimal risk of layoffs--and it'll be only in retail, etc But that's *very* different from what I sense from founder/VC side If you're an employee, take stock of your company and role and make sure in good place. Stay safe!

Unfortunately, the feeling was short-lived.

In consumer land, buying behavior took a nosedive for most verticals, and ad sales followed suit. Despite adding a ton of new users, FB ad prices dropped.

In B2B land, SaaS spending shrank as businesses failed or started bracing for a long recession ahead by cutting non-essential software.

As a result, even the most successful tech companies were forced to make major cuts.

Eric Stromberg @ericstromberg

Basic framework: 95% of startups are hurt by the virus, 5% helped, 0% unchanged.

Sar Haribhakti @sarthakgh

Wow This cash machine has virtually never slowed down. If they are doing this, it must be really really bad :

cnbc.comGoogle to cut marketing budgets by as much as half, directors warned of hiring freezesThe budget cut, which spans the second half of the year, is more drastic than leadership originally described.

Layoff announcements - as well as the method layoffs are executed - are now the highest signal of company culture and ethical standards than anything else. Future prospective employees of startups that had layoffs should scrutinize decisions made today with a careful eye.

Chris Yin 💫 @chriseyin

"I personally reviewed every list & every person. If you are affected it is because I decided it. For the majority of you your manager fought to keep you & I overrode them. They are blameless. There is only one person to blame and it is me."

medium.comCarta’s covid-19 layoffOver the last few weeks I’ve talked about the work we are doing around recession planning. I also said that layoffs were likely but I have…

⚔️ Tech elites say yes to reopening and no bailouts

Marc Andreessen shouted a battle cry to the public and private sectors, “IT’S TIME TO BUILD.”

Balaji S. Srinivasan @balajis

IT'S TIME TO BUILD Legendary call to arms by @pmarca. This should stir the heart of every founder. We are in this situation because we didn't build enough, we couldn't build fast enough, we didn't value building enough. We get out of this by building.

a16z.comIT’S TIME TO BUILD - Andreessen HorowitzEvery Western institution was unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic, despite many prior warnings. This monumental failure of institutional effectiveness will reverberate for the rest of the decade, but it’s not too early to ask why, and what we need to do about it... Our nation and our civilizatio…

Chamath and Mark Cuban shared some contrarian perspectives on government bailouts - “let them die” and “only if we get a good deal” respectively.

Andrew Lawrence @ndrew_lawrence

I have watched the first 12 seconds of this at least 100 times, its better than porn

Pomp 🌪 @APompliano

Damn @mcuban nails it with this one. Corporations think the government is the idiot in the room so that’s why they’re looking for bailouts. US government must get a GREAT deal or else they need to let the company fail.

Elon and others realllllly want people to go back to work already.

Elon Musk @elonmusk

FREE AMERICA NOW

Adam Draper 🛸 🌊 @AdamDraper

Both @pmarca and @elonmusk have said we should go build/get back to work and have been met with harsh criticism. I’m with them. Time to free us for the sake of progress.

🤯Some crazy stuff happened on the internet

It’s month two of this billion-person social experiment of locking people in their houses and amidst the delirium, people have been getting creative:

CYBERTEASE @Cybertease_

Cybertease is a digital co-op strip club created & run by strippers! were bringing all the excitement & sexiness of a strip club direct to your lap(top) 😉 by supporting Cybertease youre supporting sex workers affected by the coronavirus - tix below 🎟RT eventbrite.com/e/101931680400/

brianne kimmel @briannekimmel

We have our first marriage proposal in Stay at Home Valley. Live in the time of COVID-19 near @Dropbox. tinyurl.com/w9cypye

Greg Isenberg @gregisenberg

What I learned building YouProbablyNeedaHaircut.com Launched on Sunday, now is the busiest virtual barbershop on the internet - Zoom + Squarespace = the pandemic startup MVP - People yearning to support other people - 100% of people have given $5+ tips Support is a beautiful thing

youprobablyneedahaircut.comYou Probably Need a HaircutJosh Elkin, renown Chef - Instagram

🌀 @HipCityReg

I made the twitter account last year Friday I made the website 30k+ hits & a Forbes article later Here's the story

hipcityreg.substack.comI Built Hot Guys Of Tech“Issue”: 036

Jon @MrDalekJD

HOLY... the Travis Scott event in Fortnite was the one of the COOLEST events yet! Absolute UNREAL!

Proud Mom of a CEO @ProudMomofaCEO

LEAD MY SON'S SEED ROUND NOW

✨Tweeter of the Month - Greg Isenberg

Greg Isenberg, is the founder of Islands (acquired by WeWork) and advisor to Tik Tok. He is one of the smartest minds on Twitter for all things social. As a result of COVID19 lockdowns around the world, now is the best time to start a social product in recent history - Greg has been banging this drum all month in his own social-slanted version of Marc Andreessen’s “BUILD” essay. Here are his best tweets this month:

Greg Isenberg @gregisenberg

Step one of building any consumer product is: build a cult following A small audience of real and intimate believers that will expand. Create something people will fall in love with The product is only half the equation. Brand and messaging are core to mastering this

Greg Isenberg @gregisenberg

Some MAJOR opportunities in social right now: - Virtual gatherings - Livestreaming apps with built-in monetization - New internet communities that are designed to earn or learn - Games as social platforms (ie: Animal Crossing) Pick a vertical & build a minimum VIRTUAL product

Greg Isenberg @gregisenberg

Whoever figures out how to recreate the social dynamics of a club in a mobile/web app (avatar, 3D interface etc), will have just built a new major consumer social company The time is now

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✌️ Thanks

Enjoy your (hopefully few) remaining weeks (months??) of lockdown y’all!

Billy Draper @Billy_Draper

In case you missed tech twitter for past 6 weeks, here’s an abbreviated version:

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