Maroun

Today, we're launching the new @usepatch brand. This was an intense labor of love over the past four months. I'm both so proud and in awe of what our team alongside @studiokoto have come up with. 🧵👇🏽

San Francisco needs a reset. Our city charter is one of the longest in the country. It is bloated. It is broken. And it only works for the people who know how to manipulate it—not everyday San Franciscans. Today, I’m proposing reforms to clean up our city charter and make the government, and me, more accountable to you. Here is the breakdown. First: we are going to fix the city’s broken contracting system to make sure that your tax dollars are being spent efficiently and transparently. By bringing contracting under one entity, the City Administrator, we can set consistent citywide standards that will cut red tape, reduce delays, and save taxpayer dollars. Second: we are going to make our ballots shorter and simpler. That long voter packet that you received in 2024 had 15 ballot measures on it. In the same election, Oakland had 3. San Jose had 1. San Francisco makes it so easy to put things on the ballot that our elected officials don’t have to do their jobs. The result? San Franciscans have to fill out lengthy, confusing ballots, including contradictory measures and sometimes poorly written laws. This will ensure that ballot measures reflect real citywide priorities—and that elected officials focus on the job voters sent them here to do: delivering results for the people of San Francisco. Third: accountability. San Franciscans expect our city to deliver world-class services. To do that, we need to be able to hold those in leadership accountable. But right now, our charter rewards bureaucracy and scatters responsibility—protecting those in power, even if they have demonstrated serious ethical lapses. These reforms would change that to ensure that when San Franciscans elect a mayor, they know who is responsible for delivering results. San Franciscans elect people to run their government, and those leaders should be accountable for whether it works. If it doesn’t, you should know exactly who to hold responsible—that’s the point of elections. This package of reforms is about results. It’s about accountability. It’s about making City Hall work for San Francisco.

making things true: design is the practice of seeing through the surface of things to understand their underlying structure, then rearranging those elements into new forms that didn't exist before. most people think design is about aesthetics – making things look good, choosing colors, polishing interfaces. but underneath, design is a way of thinking about the world. it's about decomposition and recomposition. you take something complex, break it down into its fundamental components, understand the relationships between those parts, and then rebuild it in a way that's simpler, more powerful, or reveals something previously hidden. this is why i've always been drawn to tools and systems rather than just products. a product solves one problem. a system gives you the building blocks to solve infinite problems. when i was working on Notion, we weren't trying to build another task manager or note-taking app. we were asking: what are the atoms of software? what are the irreducible elements that, when combined, can create any tool you need? we landed on blocks, databases, views, relations. everything else is just different arrangements of these primitives. once you see this, you realize that all those single-purpose apps – Asana, Linear, Evernote, Airtable – are just rigid, pre-configured assemblies of the same underlying concepts. they've solved for one specific arrangement and called it a product. but why lock people into one configuration? give them the components and let them build exactly what they need. Notion is lego blocks for thought and work. Cursor is doing something similar but at a different layer. for decades, the barrier between human intention and working software has been enormous. you need to know syntax, frameworks, design patterns, debugging. most people with ideas never cross that chasm because the cost is too high. Cursor changes this. when you can describe what you want and the system understands not just the words but the underlying structure – the patterns, the logic, the architecture – then you're no longer translating between human thought and machine language. you're working directly with concepts, and the AI handles the decomposition into code. this philosophy extends beyond software. language is a finite set of sounds or symbols infinitely recombined to express any thought. music is twelve notes in endless patterns. DNA is four base pairs that encode all of life's complexity. the universe is fundamentally modular. simple rules, endlessly recombining, creating emergent complexity. design is the human practice of participating in that process consciously. we look at the world, identify the patterns, extract the rules, and use them to build new realities. when i look at the history of computing, the most important moments weren't new features. they were new primitives. the command line gave us composable programs. the GUI gave us direct manipulation. the web gave us hyperlinks. the smartphone gave us sensors and connectivity. each unlocked entire ecosystems because they provided new atoms that could be infinitely recombined. AI isn't just a feature. it's a new primitive. it's a new way of decomposing and recomposing reality. design is philosophy because it forces you to ask: what is this thing really? what are its essential properties? what can i remove before it stops being itself? and once i understand that, what new things can i build? this is the work. not making things pretty. making things true.

My NYC mayoral platform: - Eliminate all zoning, FAR, height restrictions - Achieve Nordic costs of subway construction and do Alon's subway plan - Long Manhattan - Regional sea wall defense - Build over Sunnyside Yards - Retrofit the top of the Empire State Building to accept trans-atlantic zeppelins - Through-running trains at Penn Station - Network of rapid regional rail lines to link NYC with neighboring cities - "superblock" the whole city so traffic only on some lanes - Protected bike lanes everywhere and new bike bridges across Hudson + East River - No more onstreet parking; get a parking garage. Expand lots onto the street and do way more outdoor dining and building - Move the Penn Station bus terminal to New Jersey and run a fast and quick train to it - Through run freight onto Long Island - Fix the LIC Hunter's Point food distribution site - Trash containerization everywhere, including new hydraulic trash tunnels - Transit expansions to LGA - Property tax overhaul to reduce burden on multifamily - expand congestion pricing zone

@_breannafaye I don't unfortunately, I was also unable to get a ticket this year 😔

Come join us if you're in town!

I loved this product

Kick off Config at Pixel Punch - an evening of lightning talks + drinks with founders & design leads: 🎤 @tiffzheng – Senior Designer @tryramp 🎤 @andyzhang – Lead Designer @codeiumdev 🎤 @maroun – Head of Design @usepatch 🎤Anthony Alvernaz – Co-founder @NumericIO

If you want to meaningfully impact aging in America, start with obesity—few things erode longevity and quality of life as profoundly, accelerating the biological aging process and fueling nearly every major chronic disease. Obesity alone is linked to 13 types of cancer and cuts life expectancy by 3–10 years, depending on severity. It promotes DNA damage and accelerates our fundamental aging process—often measured by epigenetic age. It’s one of the principal differences between the U.S. and many of the world’s longest-lived nations. We’re overfed but undernourished. 60% of all calories Americans consume come from ultra-processed foods that: • Fail to induce proper satiety, pushing us to overeat. • Remain cheaper than whole foods, economically incentivizing the least healthy choices. • Hijack our dopamine reward pathways, reinforcing addictive eating behaviors. This trifecta—no satiety, low cost, and built-in addictiveness—keeps us in a cycle of poor health outcomes and runaway healthcare costs. But caloric excess is only part of the problem—we are also nutrient-deficient. Low omega-3 levels—affecting 80 to 90% of Americans—carry the same mortality risk as smoking. Vitamin D deficiency—easily corrected—compromises immune function, cognition, and longevity. Nearly half of Americans don't get enough magnesium—impairing DNA repair and increasing the risk of cancer. We are not solving these problems—we are medicating them. The average American over 65 takes five or more prescription drugs daily—stacking interactions that compound in unpredictable ways. We must start treating physical inactivity as a disease. It carries the same mortality risk as smoking, heart disease, and diabetes. Going from a low cardiorespiratory fitness to a low normal adds 2.1 years to life expectancy. By age 50, many Americans have already lost 10% of their peak muscle mass. By 70, many have lost up to 40%. This isn’t just about looking strong. It’s about survival. • Higher muscle mass means improved insulin sensitivity - it means a 30% lower mortality risk. • Grip strength is a stronger predictor of cardiovascular mortality - the number one cause of death in the United States - than high blood pressure. • The strongest middle-aged adults have a 42% lower dementia risk. And yet, we treat resistance training as optional. It is not. It is the most powerful intervention we have against aging including increasing muscle mass, strength and bone density. Hip fractures alone kill 20–60% of older adults within a year. This is a death sentence we can prevent with resistance training - which has been shown to lower fracture risk by 30-40%. The current RDA for protein is too low for older adults. Studies have shown when it's increased by half this reduces frailty by 32%, while doubling it, combined with resistance training, increases muscle mass by 27% and strength by 10% more than training alone. If we want to prevent muscle loss and frailty, we must update our protein recommendations and prioritize strength training. We must foster a culture of American exceptionalism built on daily, effortful exercise. Not as an afterthought. Not as a luxury. But as a non-negotiable foundation for aging, but also clear thinking, resilience, and even leadership. The body and brain are not separate. The consequences of poorly regulated blood sugar, sedentary living, and muscle loss are not just physical—they affect cognition, judgment, and resilience. We cannot medicate our way out of what we have behaved our way into. Grateful for the chance to share my voice at the Senate Aging Committee (@SenateAging). A special thank you to Senator Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) for making this opportunity possible.

Brand is the widest moat.

I’m excited to announce the Porsche 911 of water filters: @rorrawater Rorra is a new countertop water filter that is… Beautiful – Striking stainless steel body that looks both futuristic and nostalgic at the same time. Effective – Targets harmful contaminants like PFAS, Microplastics, Lead, and many more. Durable – Made of medical-grade stainless steel designed to last for decades.. Timeless – Designed to be at home in any kitchen or office, and holds its own with any other appliance. Easy to set up - Takes less than 10 minutes to set up once it arrives. Easy to use – My 2 year old can use it by himself. Accessible – No plumbing, electrical, or expensive set-up work required. Rigorously Tested – We’ve spent six figures testing with the NSF, the world’s top certification body for water filtration products. Rorra is available everywhere in the US starting today, and it couldn’t come at a more important time. The harsh truth is that America's water infrastructure is broken. Our nation’s tap water is often contaminated with hundreds of contaminants that impact our health, from microplastics and PFAS, to lead (a lot of our municipal water systems still use lead pipes), and many more. All invisible but deadly threats in the long-term. Rorra's CEO @BrianDKeller7 and I faced this issue head on shortly after our kids were born, as they suffered from skin issues due to contaminated tap water. After researching potential solutions with @CharlieRorra, we found a host of issues with the existing products and brands in the market. Lack of transparency – The majority of brands do not even bother to work with accredited third party labs to test their products. Poor efficacy – Many companies claim to filter things out that they simply do not. Bad design – Lots of plastic-based products that are an eyesore regardless of your kitchen and can have harmful chemicals leach into water. Confusing experiences – Lack of simplicity in systems create mental burden and lead to improper usage. Expensive set up costs – Many systems require getting a plumber out to your home and alter your existing plumbing, which can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars by itself. Rorra is our answer to these issues and over the coming years we will continuously invest more time and resources into water filter R&D and make those innovations available for as many people as possible. We want Rorra to be the water filter company that every household in America can rely on. Thank you to @bzises, @jwmares, @baileyberro, @jmwass, and many more for supporting the mission and investing pre-product. We couldn’t be more excited to share our first product with the world. If you’re curious about the contaminants in your water, visit @rorrawater’s website and enter your zip code to get an in-depth report on your local tap water.

A few thoughts from the conversations I’ve been having and hearing over the last week: The hard question isn’t the 2 points that would’ve decided the election. It’s how to build a Democratic Party that isn’t always 2 points away from losing to Donald Trump — or worse. The Democratic Party is supposed to represent the working class. If it isn’t doing that, it is failing. That’s true even even if it can still win elections. Democrats don’t need to build a new informational ecosystem. Dems need to show up in the informational ecosystems that already exist. They need to be natural and enthusiastic participants in these cultures. Harris should’ve gone on Rogan, but the damage here was done over years and wouldn’t have been reversed in one October appearance. Building a media ecosystem isn’t something you do through nonprofit grants or rich donors (remember Air America?). Joe Rogan and Theo Von aren’t a Koch-funded psy-op. What makes these spaces matter is that they aren’t built on politics. (Democrats already win voters who pay close attention to politics.) That there’s more affinity between Democrats and the Cheneys than Democrats and the Rogans and Theo Vons of the world says a lot. Economic populism is not just about making your economic policy more and more redistributive. People care about fairness. They admire success. People have economic identities in addition to material needs. Trump — and in a different way, Musk — understand the identity side of this. What they share isn’t that they are rich and successful, it’s that they made themselves into the public’s idea of what it means to be rich and successful. Policy matters, but it has to be real to the candidate. Policy is a way candidates tell voters who they are. But people can tell what politicians really care about and what they’re mouthing because it polls well. Governing matters. If housing is more affordable, and homelessness far less of a crisis, in Texas and Florida than California and New York, that’s a *huge* problem. If people are leaving California and New York for Texas and Florida, that’s a *huge* problem. Democrats need to take seriously how much scarcity harms them. Housing scarcity became a core Trump-Vance argument against immigrants. Too little clean energy becomes the argument for rapidly building out more fossil fuels. A successful liberalism needs to believe in *and deliver* abundance of the things people need most. That Democrats aren’t trusted on the cost of living harmed them much more than any ad. If Dems want to “Sister Soulja” some part of their coalition, start with the parts that have made it so much more expensive to build and live where Democrats govern. More than a “Sister Soulja” moment, Democrats need to rebuild a culture of saying no inside their own coalition. Democrats don’t just have to move right or left. They need to better reflect the texture of worlds they’ve lost touch with and those worlds are complex and contradictory. The most important question in politics isn’t whether a politician is well liked. It’s whether voters think a politician — or a political coalition — likes them.

The best science tells us that climate change is not like an asteroid hurtling towards earth, an all-or-nothing battle for survival. Rather, every billion tons of CO2 & every 10th of a degree of warming we prevent will save lives, prevent suffering, and avoid countless damage. The fight cannot be surrendered, and the project of building a world where the lives and aspirations of 8-going-on-10 billion people can be powered by clean, abundant energy remains essential.

hi, you should vote in sf local elections are won by a few hundred votes, which means you can swing the election sf has ridiculously fixable problems caused by a fringe group that we can vote out many of you recognize that sf is important, it’s important to you and what you work on, and it’s culture is nowhere else this is the city where the future is built. in any other city in the world, caring about climate change means posting on the internet. In SF it means building an electric stove. This is the only place in the world where people look at problems dead in the eye and then actually do something about it. The people of sf make life extension drugs, cryogenics, robots, powerful batteries, self-driving vehicles, pass the turing test, and read ancient scrolls. San Francisco is like the driver’s seat of the world. that culture only gets to exists in the context of good institutions. A small, fringe group has captured sf for years and driven it into the ground: they’ve blocked housing for years, driving up rent prices. They’ve effectively stopped enforcing laws, and let dealers poison and kill thousands of the poorest folks in the city. in this election we can genuinely fix it. Please vote! Save SF!

Copilot continues to be in the top 3 pieces of software I pay for.

I cannot emphasize enough how the actual best designers are people with full lives and interests outside of work. You can't tap an empty well. You can't solve problems if you don't know how anything works. You can't make interesting things if you aren't interested.

@ryanprudhouse @akoysor @crew @usepatch Amazing work y'all 👏

@akoysor @crew @usepatch Thank YOU for all your help on this koysor, you're the goat!!

As part of the @crew team, we delivered a new homepage build for @usepatch Designed by @ryanprudhouse who killed this.

@ryanlyma @Contrary_Res It’s so good, well done y’all!

Welcome to the new Contrary Research! We spend months rebuilding every pixel of @Contrary_Res from ground up to make it the best place to anyone to start their research into any private company.

For carbon removal, the 2020s is about figuring out what works. What is the most scaleable, sustainable, cheapest, least resource-intensive thing we can do to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. The CDR startup Running Tide is now laying off all staff. They piloted an approach where macro-algae captured CO2 and then sinks into the deep ocean. They raised $50 million and was one of the most well-known CDR companies so it is a big deal. Although the lack of a buyers certainly played a role, it’s possible the removal method didn’t perform as anticipated. As in all new industries, the majority of the early players will cease to exist. Many other shutdowns will be announced by big and small CDR startups in the coming years. Due to consolidation effects that would happen even if there were plenty of carbon credit buyers. The US had over 1000 car manufacturers 110 years ago, three of them remains. What we truly want to avoid is leaving promising methods untested. We do not want the tragedy of dusty patents with world-changing ideas stuck in a drawer or with founders that never got to raise money. Was macro-algae as a CDR solution properly tested by Running Tide? Maybe, I don't know. I hope they will publish their data, enhancing the knowledge of how well the method worked. Startups, early buyers, and venture capitalists play an outsized role in ensuring that promising ideas can be properly tried out. We will not reach scale without governments financing CDR outright, or forcing companies to buy it. But without the trailblazing brave founders like Running Tides Marty Odlin and the people willing to fund such endeavours, we will never uncover the most effective carbon removal solutions. My condolences to the Running Tide team, thank you for your hard work in advancing CDR.

Last week, @ryanlyma and I hosted @contrary's 1st Design Summit in SF: a gathering of ~25 experienced designers who were 1st or 2nd at great startups. Being the 1st or 2nd designer can be a lonely role - one without teammates and a clear career path on a small team. I felt similar loneliness when I was the founding PM at Novi. The keynote featured Katie Witkop, @faire_wholesale's founding designer, and her incredible 7 year adventure there. Katie shared how her responsibilities as founding designer ranged far past what you may expect a designer to do: swag, team offsites, team culture, designing the Faire offices and more. She also talked about hiring Faire's head of design and getting leveled as the company grew and scaled. The panel featured @AdamStorr (@_hex_tech's founding designer/head of design), @maroun (@usepatch's founding designer/head of design) and @MicahSivitz (design leader at Dropbox, Asana and now @figma). Alongside Ryan (Contrary’s own founding designer/head of design), they shared their journey of transitioning from IC to Manager, navigating how to hire and build out a team, and much more. The goal of the event was to bring together founding / early designers to learn from those who’ve gone down that path and find community and peers for those on the same journey today. If you're an early designer or PM, we'd love to include you in a future Design or Product Summit.