👉 What happened on Tech Twitter Last Week - April 1

😍 HotGuysOfTech.com, 📈what startup you should build, 🤖 Zoom spammers, 😷 masks in profile pics, and more!

Yo! It’s Brett again. Tech Twitter still hasn’t been the same since February thanks to Coronavirus. That said, the pandemic of armchair epidemiologists hasn’t completely ruined our fun.

Here’s what happened on Tech Twitter last week.

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😍 HotGuysOfTech.com

Someone put up HotGuysOfTech.com, which lists 15 of the “hottest” guys in tech and naturally, it drove Tech Twitter wild. It turned out that Reggie James, CEO/co-founder of Eternal, was the one responsible for the “experiment” as he calls it. I wasn’t in the top 15, so I totally knew it wasn’t real anyway 💁‍♂️

🌀 @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

🧑🏻‍💻☕️ @hunterwalk

@alexia @CaseyNewton A bunch of San Francisco 9s but LA 4s tbh

📈 What you should build right now

We may have just entered the first bear market since 2008, but according to Nikita Bier, that means we could be in a bull market for Social.

Simply put, incumbents like Facebook have incredibly strong network effects and are highly adapted to the status quo. When there’s a paradigm shift and the status quo changes, these network effects break down, leaving opportunity for startups to compete.

Pre-internet incumbents gave way to startups when the internet became the new norm. Pre-mobile incumbents gave way to startups when mobile became the new norm, and pre-COVID incumbents will likely give way to startups as working from home, higher health standards and economic uncertainty become the new norm.

Nikita Bier @nikitabier

For the last few years, we were all wondering what the next platform would be after mobile, that would enable new social networks to emerge. However, that catalyst won't be a new device—but instead, it will be widespread behavioral change. The conditions could never be better:

Nikita Bier @nikitabier

Every social app that was too crazy to work in 2019 is worth testing in 2020.

🤖 Zoom spammers get shut down

So now that every man, woman, and child is on Zoom, we’re starting to see some really wild stuff: entire YC batches run on Zoom, Passover seders over Zoom - even my mom plays Mahjong with her friends on Zoom now. Nonetheless, it’s great for Zoom’s bottom line.

Natalie Sandman @NatSandman

Zoom’s DAUs: 10M in December 2019 200M in March 2020 That’s some serious adoption as @zoom_us becomes a de facto for working, studying, and socializing from home

Zoom hasn’t been free from challenges. People were spamming Zoom meetings with porn and other annoyances until Zoom implemented a waiting room feature to prevent it.

Taylor Lorenz @TaylorLorenz

Zoom raiding accounts and group chats are absolutely rampant on Instagram and Discord. Students and followers are encouraged to DM codes and login links to private classes and meetings then record their successful raid for Insta Stories nytimes.com/2020/04/03/tec…

😷 Mask on!

The tech twitterati added masks to their profile photos last week to show support for wearing masks but specifically non-medical-grade masks given the short supply of PPE across US hospitals.

Balaji S. Srinivasan @balajis

Set a good example. Put a mask on your profile with twittermask.com. Then if you must go out for an essential task, wear a mask. The scientific evidence indicates that it protects you and others. Learn more at masks4all.co.

👌 Other Great Tweets

Semil @semil

Fixed typo 😩 Perhaps obvious to most, thought I’d share summary of what many VCs I’ve talked to are predicting for economic slowdown & a potential recovery (specific to a startup audience): Q2 bad Q3 even worse Q4 / Q1 stabilize (best case) Q2-21 recovery begins 18-24 mo’s

Jerry Lu 🌱🚀 @thejerrylu

Slack: - DAUs: 10M+ - weekly msg count: 1B+ - employee count: 1000+ - valuation: 15B Discord: - DAUs: 20M+ - weekly msg count: ~2B+ - employee count: 100+ - valuation: 2B Just as Slack pivoted from gaming, what would happen if Discord started serving businesses?

sam lessin @lessin

It is really interesting to watch talented & v well intentioned people try to coordinate COVID-19 response. w/o natural capitalist pressures or strong central planning you get lot of overlap and waste. It is unclear how to manage this when time is key. More on this later...

Brian Roemmele @BrianRoemmele

It was 1982 and Isaac Asimov predicted the: -Smartphone -GPS location via smartphone -Constant contact -Remote work by using computers and networks 1982.

Dan Shipper @danshipper

3 types of good articles: - Say something new and useful - Say something we already know and make us FEEL it - Take something complicated and make it simple

Paul Graham @paulg

Investors: Any startup that gets started during the next few months is disproportionately likely to succeed. Success depends most of all on determination, and imagine how determined you have to be to start a startup in the middle of a global pandemic.

Jeff Morris Jr. @jmj

Who would have thought that this blue-haired teenager would one day become the CEO of two public companies?

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🙏 Thanks

Thanks for reading yall. Keep social distancing, washing those hands, and wearing non-medical-grade masks. We’ll get through this. Here are some words (letters) of support if you’re feeling down.

Elon Musk @elonmusk

u r o k

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