Bhel made high 59 from latest suggestion 46: 😊Above 60 #bhel chance to see 66-75 levels

👇 Thread. New deck getting published this week: "Consumer startups are awesome, and here's what I'm looking to invest in at Andreessen Horowitz." If you want to read it, subscribe to my newsletter here: https://t.co/262t8eh0wf

1/ A lot of new consumer technologies have been introduced to US households in the last 100 years. But it's taken many of them - like the telephone - more than 50 years to get to the majority of the US. Why is that?

2/ We had to literally teach people how to use phone. Which end goes to your mouth, which goes to your ear. Say "hello" when people call. The motivation of consumers to talk to their friends has always been there, but we had to teach the behavior

3/ If you compare phones to the latest technologies, there's been a huge shift. Things are being picked up much faster.

4/ Even while there's been all this innovation recently, physically speaking, we are still the same human beings from 100,000 years ago.

Trump on climate: I don't believe it. Trump on Khashoggi: I don't believe it. Trump on Russia: I don't believe it. Idiocy? A canny game? Doesn't really matter as much as the underlying intellectual autocracy. In this administration only one opinion matters.

It's an assault on facts and reason. It's an assault on good governance. It's an assault on the bureaucracies that are being discounted. It's an assault on science and history. But it is also an assault on one of the underpinnings of democracy.

We live in a system that is grounded on the idea of collaborative government. Leaders may have a final word but even then, there are typically checks and balances. Hopefully, in this case, such checks and balances may work. But they also are being tested.

The president's position that he is smarter than all the world's scientists, than the entire intelligence community, than experts who have studied any issue all their lives, is, of course, asinine. But his belief that government turns solely on his opinion, is monarchic.

Louis XIV reportedly said, "L'etat est moi." That he was the state. Trump asserting that he knows better than all, discounts all advice, that his brain is enough to chart the course for America alone, is essentially saying the same thing.

1) The Temple of the Divine Claudius was a vast temple complex on Rome's Caelian Hill, overlooking the valley that would later be occupied by the Colosseum. Though almost nothing now remains of the structure, its scale and grandeur once rivalled anything in the city.. #LostRome

2) The 'Claudium' was intended as a sacred complex to revere Claudius and the imperial cult. Construction began soon after the death and deification of the emperor in 54 AD, initiated by his widow Agrippina who was likely responsible for his supposed death by poisoning. #LostRome

3) The sprawling temple complex sat on a gigantic podium that spread across the Caelian Hill, measuring 180 x 200 metres; with towering retaining walls of travertine that raised the structure 20 metres above the valley below. #LostRome

4) The elevated sacred area was likely entered by steps facing the temple on the west side. The temple itself had a projecting hexastyle porch and was surrounded by gardens and a grand portico, probably the 'porticus Claudia' mentioned in Martial's 'On the Spectacles'. #LostRome

5) Statues of both Agrippina and Claudius’ ill-fated young son Britannicus, sculpted in sumptuous dark Egyptian greywacke, were discovered among the ruins on the Caelian Hill in 1651 – and had almost certainly been displayed in the temple precinct. #LostRome

1/ The first 18 months of starting a company is often life or death. I must've made 5 different companies that each failed within 9 mo. 😭 Each time the company failed I figured out what I could do better. Eventually startup #6 got to $40K/mo by month 18. Here’s what I learned...

2/ Stay focused! Ignore things that are a waste of time: meetups & conferences, meetings with no clear agenda, fundraising if you're not fundraising, reading lots of tech media articles, etc. Every week should feel like significant progress in the first year.

3/ Your first 5 hires will be the difference between life or death. Choose carefully. Be picky. Many of the things we do at the company still are a result of those early hires' legacy. Have fun as a tight knit team. It will change & evolve as you get bigger so enjoy this moment.

4/ Growth may be flat for the first 9 months. It's gonna be okay. Almost every company has experienced this: Airbnb had to sell cereal in-between, Slack failed as a gaming company first, Tesla sold only 147 cars after 6 years! You probably won't be an overnight success either.

5/ In the beginning, do customer support yourself. You will learn a lot about why your product sucks. I did 5,000+ support tickets when it was the two of us. Delight customers & fix things fast while you learn. It will help you build an amazing intuition about your customers.