Homebrew VC Hunter Walk Talks Twitter, TikTok, and Tech in the Time of Biden

A decade ago, I was only a couple of years into my venture career. I believed that growth and progress were synonymous – in an industry where scale was the ultimate target, platforms that achieved it were glorified. A decade later, I have learned that success is more nuanced, and we have to take accountability for the outcomes we encourage. New dom... See more

I’ve never cared much about the presence or not of a blue check by a user’s name, but I do notice when tweets from people I follow make up a smaller and smaller percentage of my feed. It’s as if neighbors of years moved out from my block overnight, replaced by strangers who all came knocking on my front door carrying not a casserole but a tweetstor... See more

It’s difficult to describe how different the pre-turbocharged algorithmically determined feed internet felt compared to today’s hyper-accelerated information environment. Back then forums felt like cozy rural communes, today’s social media driven environment is like the urban jungle. To the extent that the feed algorithm is accurate, it feels merit... See more

This is not to just be a “things were better in the old days” rant. But I do think in the era of growth teams running wild with machine learning algorithms, we accelerated distribution incentives to drive engagement before we really knew what incentives were being created in the internet economy. And now the larger social networks are grappling wit... See more