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@radbackwards

VP/Designer of @1x_tech Robot & Universe • ‘The Dar Sleeper of Technology’

Palo Alto, CA Katılım Ekim 2020
3.2K Takip Edilen86.3K Takipçiler
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dar
dar@radbackwards·
There’s a reason I take so much pride in my work. Designing NEO and telling its story is an attempt to do justice to some of the best engineering work in human history. I am so lucky. I am so grateful for all the support.
dar@radbackwards

Alien Technology

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dar
dar@radbackwards·
@gabriel1 It was a joke Gabe. Harry was joking
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Lulu Cheng Meservey
Lulu Cheng Meservey@lulumeservey·
Lessons from this: 1) Don’t outsource your judgment to the PR team. Use your own instincts, there’s a reason you’re the one running the company. @radbackwards makes this point and he’s right. You wouldn’t blindly approve a product update; don’t take your eyes off the road with comms 2) Judge people not outlets. “Boycott Wired” isn’t the answer. Even an independent podcaster could be an angel in your competitor. Or the perfect person to help tell your story might work for mainstream media. The unit of analysis is the individual not the institution 3) Go direct. Building your own platform lets you maintain (or regain) control over your narrative. Going direct doesn’t mean shunning the media, but even if you did, criticism is unavoidable. Having an audience lets you say your piece and reset the narrative, as Dar does here
dar@radbackwards

I gave WIRED the exclusive on our hands launch, and they wrote a really weird article about how we are sexualizing robotics… wired.com/story/the-1x-n… I felt pretty betrayed because that’s not what they told me they were writing about not is that what I’ve ever been about… actually I stand for quite the opposite… But I’ve come to find a lot of dishonesty and malice in the journalism community so I wasn’t surprised. This is what I sent the author… I’m only sharing this because I hope it encourages journalists to resist the click bait trap and tell truly awesome stories because I for one don’t believe journalism is dead— I think it’s just starting and just needs to evolve past the weird corner of the internet where data driven optimization turns everything into smooth brained shocking brain rot bullshit. The technological revolution we are going through should inspire a journalism renaissance. Not let it fall into further decay. There is so much brilliance at play in the world and the stories should be told! My note: “[author name redacted], it was nice talking to you, but I wanted to let you know that I didn’t enjoy your article at all. I understand the need to be inflammatory because that seems to be the only thing that gets clicks these days but that doesnt mean you shouldn’t recognize when something special is in front of you. I trusted our PR team in saying we should offer you the exclusive on what is one of the most important technological developments in the history of Mankind and I deeply regret it. Good luck with the rest of your writing career. -Dar Sleeper”

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ELON
ELON@elonrutberg·
Speaking as someone with some (slight) inside track here: The original piece (which is no longer visible nor archived, so the current draft is not remotely a representation of what Dar is responding to) had many sections which were atrociously worded and well below the general threshold of professional conduct expected by *any* journalist, let alone what is supposed to (historically speaking, at least) be an outlet of record like Wired. The piece has now been heavily sanitized. You would be more than shocked to read the original language (it included the byline "The soft, weirdly sexualized home-chore robot has been given some very tactile hands" and later said that "1X seems pretty sure that you’re also going to want to have sex with its robot.") Not only that, but there are still uncorrected falsehoods and aspersions in the piece (specifically re: privacy and safety concerns) that have been public knowledge since launch over seven months ago, yet the writer (despite being issued corrections) still has retained the language in a poor effort to transform the piece into a "gotcha" work, when there is, in fact, no gotcha to actually get. Whether people trust Wired or not is secondary to the fact that behavior like this has become widely endemic in a journalism industry that seems to think that journalistic ethics (if not basic human sense and consideration) is optional. It's a sad state of affairs, and is great so many people have rushed to the company's defense when their ability to grant exclusive to a very exciting launch was more or less sabotaged by a narcissistic and short sighted outlet that clearly has lost its way.
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Ashley Mayer
Ashley Mayer@ashleymayer·
I’m guessing few people who joined the backlash chorus against WIRED’s IX Neo piece actually read the full article, or watched the company’s video that sparked some of its inquiries. First, some acknowledgements: 1) This technology is incredible (especially when autonomous versus remotely human-controlled). 2) It’s always stressful to put yourself, your company and your product out there for judgement. An outsider is never going to understand all the context. 3) Media often impose a narrative - sometimes it’s in service of what’s most interesting/relevant to their audience, and sometimes it’s less noble. It’s appropriate to call stuff out that feels unfair, and social media has definitely shifted that power dynamic. That's a good thing! In this case, I personally thought the article was pretty balanced, and raised appropriate questions about privacy (re: the option to have a human take over remotely) coupled with the sexual nature of parts of the product video. For the former, this strikes me as a highly relevant frontier topic and the company had good responses! You should actually want media to ask these tough questions so you have a chance to address - always assume your audience/customer is smart. For the latter, you’ll have to judge for yourself...maybe I have a dirty mind, but looking at the YouTube comments, I am not alone 😇 Regardless, the Neo team did a good job capitalizing on the piece, and likely got far more attention turning this into an anti-media moment than they would have otherwise, especially since the article is behind a paywall anyway. TBD whether that helps or hurts them in the long run.
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Trae Stephens
Trae Stephens@traestephens·
You know I love you Josie, but this is a bad take. Haha. The problem isn’t negative press, it’s tabloid gossip masquerading as a credible tech publication, which @WIRED used to be. It’s not “criticism”, it’s a story about robot finger sexy time. This is not serious.
Josie Zayner@josiezayner

Imo the twitter tech press is way too kind to most tech companies that any amount of criticism to a company immediately receives complaints from techs "finest" Everything these days reads like every tech company is the greatest company in the world when know thats not true

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dar
dar@radbackwards·
@DrKnowItAll16 Of course I loved it. I love all your stuff
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DrKnowItAll
DrKnowItAll@DrKnowItAll16·
Dar, I'm sure you'll appreciate Scott and my video on your hand much more than that odd Wired article. Let use know your thoughts! youtu.be/jwuBX9pFBFA?si…
YouTube video
YouTube
dar@radbackwards

I gave WIRED the exclusive on our hands launch, and they wrote a really weird article about how we are sexualizing robotics… wired.com/story/the-1x-n… I felt pretty betrayed because that’s not what they told me they were writing about not is that what I’ve ever been about… actually I stand for quite the opposite… But I’ve come to find a lot of dishonesty and malice in the journalism community so I wasn’t surprised. This is what I sent the author… I’m only sharing this because I hope it encourages journalists to resist the click bait trap and tell truly awesome stories because I for one don’t believe journalism is dead— I think it’s just starting and just needs to evolve past the weird corner of the internet where data driven optimization turns everything into smooth brained shocking brain rot bullshit. The technological revolution we are going through should inspire a journalism renaissance. Not let it fall into further decay. There is so much brilliance at play in the world and the stories should be told! My note: “[author name redacted], it was nice talking to you, but I wanted to let you know that I didn’t enjoy your article at all. I understand the need to be inflammatory because that seems to be the only thing that gets clicks these days but that doesnt mean you shouldn’t recognize when something special is in front of you. I trusted our PR team in saying we should offer you the exclusive on what is one of the most important technological developments in the history of Mankind and I deeply regret it. Good luck with the rest of your writing career. -Dar Sleeper”

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Lulu Cheng Meservey
Lulu Cheng Meservey@lulumeservey·
First thing Phia needs to do is stop using this dumb excuse that it was a random glitch they were just “made aware” about Nobody’s buying that. And when you have a crisis of trust, the worst thing you can do is strain credibility further Second is get founders to quit hiding behind a faceless corpo spokesperson, take accountability, give a better explanation, and pay back the money People can eventually forgive “naive first time founders got in over their heads and are humbled” but won’t forgive “these nepo babies really think we’re stupid”
Joe Weisenthal@TheStalwart

Wow. Great Investigation from @oliviasolon @jeffykao and Priyanjana Bengani on how Phia, a startup founded by Bill Gates’ daughter Phoebe, takes $$ from other outlets (e.g. Wirecutter) by surreptitiously injecting its affiliate code into transactions it didn’t actually generate.

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dar
dar@radbackwards·
@space_colonist After the X Algo just subtract cocked me— emphasis on the yet
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Martian
Martian@space_colonist·
@radbackwards but you haven't even dumped a SPAC on retail investors yet
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dar
dar@radbackwards·
I am become Brett Adcock!
dar tweet media
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dar
dar@radbackwards·
@MikeIsaac Ya. 90% of the weirdest shit is gone. But can see if it got indexed or my team has screenshots and share w you
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rat king 🐀
rat king 🐀@MikeIsaac·
@radbackwards sorry, so there was more stuff that got cut after publication? i only just read now
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Jesse Genet
Jesse Genet@jessegenet·
Doomers gonna doom, be the light ✨ Our AI future is as positive as we make it, so use AI in positive ways for your family Trying to do my part to share how I do just that and @NYMag decided to help share it 💕
Jesse Genet tweet media
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Garry Tan
Garry Tan@garrytan·
So much could go wrong But the interesting question is always: what happens if things go right?
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dar
dar@radbackwards·
@shira_sats Naoto is one of my hero’s
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dar
dar@radbackwards·
@joeykrug Horrendous. But also if you would saw the first thing they published before heavily editing… you would have been far more disappointed.
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Joey Krug
Joey Krug@joeykrug·
The most insane thing about this to me is that Wired called Vivaldi “smooth jazz”
dar@radbackwards

I gave WIRED the exclusive on our hands launch, and they wrote a really weird article about how we are sexualizing robotics… wired.com/story/the-1x-n… I felt pretty betrayed because that’s not what they told me they were writing about not is that what I’ve ever been about… actually I stand for quite the opposite… But I’ve come to find a lot of dishonesty and malice in the journalism community so I wasn’t surprised. This is what I sent the author… I’m only sharing this because I hope it encourages journalists to resist the click bait trap and tell truly awesome stories because I for one don’t believe journalism is dead— I think it’s just starting and just needs to evolve past the weird corner of the internet where data driven optimization turns everything into smooth brained shocking brain rot bullshit. The technological revolution we are going through should inspire a journalism renaissance. Not let it fall into further decay. There is so much brilliance at play in the world and the stories should be told! My note: “[author name redacted], it was nice talking to you, but I wanted to let you know that I didn’t enjoy your article at all. I understand the need to be inflammatory because that seems to be the only thing that gets clicks these days but that doesnt mean you shouldn’t recognize when something special is in front of you. I trusted our PR team in saying we should offer you the exclusive on what is one of the most important technological developments in the history of Mankind and I deeply regret it. Good luck with the rest of your writing career. -Dar Sleeper”

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dar
dar@radbackwards·
@NWischoff 🫶🏻 made me smile. Ty Nichole
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Nichole Wischoff
Nichole Wischoff@NWischoff·
Was extremely lucky to spend time with both Brett at Figure and Jeff at Apptronik over the past few years to tour their HQs and to hear about how extremely complicated it is to operate a single hand and the billion tasks it takes on even an hourly basis. While I haven’t spent time with the 1x team, if what they have accomplished is true, it is one GIGANTIC leap for mankind. Going direct as founders might be the only way to get the right message out to the world right now. (Though worth giving a shout to folks like @alexrkonrad who deeply give a shit about the mission and far less about click bait). @radbackwards and team - keep going.
dar@radbackwards

I gave WIRED the exclusive on our hands launch, and they wrote a really weird article about how we are sexualizing robotics… wired.com/story/the-1x-n… I felt pretty betrayed because that’s not what they told me they were writing about not is that what I’ve ever been about… actually I stand for quite the opposite… But I’ve come to find a lot of dishonesty and malice in the journalism community so I wasn’t surprised. This is what I sent the author… I’m only sharing this because I hope it encourages journalists to resist the click bait trap and tell truly awesome stories because I for one don’t believe journalism is dead— I think it’s just starting and just needs to evolve past the weird corner of the internet where data driven optimization turns everything into smooth brained shocking brain rot bullshit. The technological revolution we are going through should inspire a journalism renaissance. Not let it fall into further decay. There is so much brilliance at play in the world and the stories should be told! My note: “[author name redacted], it was nice talking to you, but I wanted to let you know that I didn’t enjoy your article at all. I understand the need to be inflammatory because that seems to be the only thing that gets clicks these days but that doesnt mean you shouldn’t recognize when something special is in front of you. I trusted our PR team in saying we should offer you the exclusive on what is one of the most important technological developments in the history of Mankind and I deeply regret it. Good luck with the rest of your writing career. -Dar Sleeper”

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dar
dar@radbackwards·
I gave WIRED the exclusive on our hands launch, and they wrote a really weird article about how we are sexualizing robotics… wired.com/story/the-1x-n… I felt pretty betrayed because that’s not what they told me they were writing about not is that what I’ve ever been about… actually I stand for quite the opposite… But I’ve come to find a lot of dishonesty and malice in the journalism community so I wasn’t surprised. This is what I sent the author… I’m only sharing this because I hope it encourages journalists to resist the click bait trap and tell truly awesome stories because I for one don’t believe journalism is dead— I think it’s just starting and just needs to evolve past the weird corner of the internet where data driven optimization turns everything into smooth brained shocking brain rot bullshit. The technological revolution we are going through should inspire a journalism renaissance. Not let it fall into further decay. There is so much brilliance at play in the world and the stories should be told! My note: “[author name redacted], it was nice talking to you, but I wanted to let you know that I didn’t enjoy your article at all. I understand the need to be inflammatory because that seems to be the only thing that gets clicks these days but that doesnt mean you shouldn’t recognize when something special is in front of you. I trusted our PR team in saying we should offer you the exclusive on what is one of the most important technological developments in the history of Mankind and I deeply regret it. Good luck with the rest of your writing career. -Dar Sleeper”
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dar
dar@radbackwards·
@TheSexHealer 100% latex. Fixes people’s sleep problems in 1 night. Given your username I can assume what other things are and no comment.
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dar@radbackwards·
And fwiw— you’ll never convince me to hate journalists with any amount of X hate or media training. I love too many of them too much. Isolating the problem matters and blankets statements are damaging: WEAK ASS JOURNALISTS THAT PREY ON DOPAMINE BECAUSE THEY CANT WRITE OR BE OPTIMISTIC SUCK.
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