The Birthday Post🎂

Today is my Birthday. I am 39 years old. Last birthday of my 30s. I would like to spout old man cliches about time passing by and savor the little moments and whatnot. But I won’t. Instead, I will feature some of my best writing. At least, the ones I think are the best.

This year has also been 5th anniversary of my blogging venture. I have not been consistent but I have still managed to eek out some gems. And I think you’ll enjoy them as well.

On the money

I have written a lot about the tech business. And some of it has been predictions. Which have been mostly accurate. But none have been as accurate as the one in Neeva is not going to save us from the Google Monster:

Fallacy #3—Neeva wants to compete Google
Nobody in their right mind would pay $37 Million to fund a Google competitor that will be subscription-only and does not have any proprietary tech behind it. My guess that the founders and investors have a clear exit strategy; sell to Facebook, Amazon or Apple once the product is mature enough. My guess is Apple, hence the credibility signaling.

While big tech did not bite, Neeva was acquired by Snowflake, a data warehouse company. With Neeva’s CEO being appointed as the CEO of Snowflake. It was never about privacy or search.

Tongue Firmly In Cheek

I wish to write more satire. One of the funniest things I have ever written was A Helpful Guide to Being Right all the time!:

Knowing with all possible certainty that you are correct. In case of an argument over an important matter:

• You can insist and be deemed an obsessive.
• You can resist the wrong and be considered stubborn.
• You can just let it go and get a reputation of being docile, and also in the process infer that you were wrong.

You can also let go. However, the matter being of import, this is not an option. It is what some people call a kafkatrap. This can cause a lot of distress to your superior intellect. How can you deal with such nincompoops! I will provide you with surefire strategies to resolve this pesky disagreement!

I wrote this as a caricaturish version of myself. It was very fun writing. If you read only one post featured here, read this one.

Twitter still isn’t real

Another tech prediction that also came true, but only partially, was in Twitter Isn’t Real:

The Worst Case Scenario
Twitter becomes an even bigger cesspool. It turns into Gab, or Gettr, or like any of the other Reactionary Right trash fire platforms that have no hope of upside and just running on the fumes of impotent boomer rage and the edge-lord attention whoring.

These platforms have both demand-side and supply side issues. Half their user base of old angry guys will die out, do not exist outside of States and will die out shortly. The other half will grow up, or be in jail. Probably for terrorism.

The tone was a lot more vitriolic, but this worst case did come true. However, twitter isn’t only one thing anymore. It has also become a minor competitor to LinkedIn. If Papa Elon comes to his senses, he will lean unto that. But I doubt that.

One more thing

I also wrote A Primer on The Right to Free Speech. I can post a quote from it but the context would be lost. If you are confused about how freedom of speech works, you should give it a read.

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Here’s to 39 years. And hopefully 39 more at least. I hope I keep seeing you

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