Ruslan Halilov

@appenz check out bluedothq.com works like granola without bots on your desktop + API available.

Sorry to see Granola @meetgranola going closed. They encrypted their local db, no local and no cloud API. In a world where notes are managed by agents, the app now has zero value. Any recommendations for good alternatives? What are you switching to?

@RobLipsett traveling there in a week. where should I stay for a few days to get the feeling of the town? it looks quite stretched across the coast. not sure where exactly to rent (old town or else)

When you first visit Marbella you’ll think summer is the best time of year All the locals / residents will tell you that the low season winter months are the best time of year and you won’t believe them Then you’ll do all the seasons here and end up getting it Photos taken yesterday ☀️

@TakoTreba Paying taxes on fixed income is fine till certain point. But once you want to get $500K in dividends or $5M in exit it really hurts.

Am I the only one who doesn’t have a problem with paying high taxes? I get why people don’t like it, but I received support during my studies, a 50% discounted transport card, and free education and healthcare. Sometimes I still think, “Wow, I’m paying a lot to the tax office,” but I’m also contributing to future generations. We don’t need a lot of money to live. We need motivation, good jobs, great friends, and a healthy family. A rich life, in the sense of safety. And safety doesn’t only mean the military. It means that if you lose your job, the government can step in. If you get sick, you’re covered. Paying taxes in good countries that aren’t corrupt makes total sense to me. So if you’re choosing a country to live in, don’t look for low taxes. Look for low corruption and taxes that actually fund public services.

I liked when Joe Rogan said “I don’t like wagyu. That’s a sick animal, that is a cow close to death”

@peer_rich n26 in germany is offering phone numbers. haven't tried it yet though.

revolut is no longer a mobile bank insane product depth cant wait to replace my shitty vodafone deal in Germany

@texasgermanbre @christianmiele i studied and worked in Poland for 3.5 years. great place. a bit hard with getting citizenship though. plus not the best place to live as a Ukrainian.

@rusras_ @christianmiele It’s bad everywhere rn. You kind of have to pick your poison which sucks. Poland is growing tbh tho might be interesting

To my English-speaking friends around the world: a bit of context. Germany’s economic numbers are terrible. We haven’t grown in years, the budget is stretched to the limit, and investment pipelines are jammed. The current CDU+SPD coalition began with high expectations, but it’s become increasingly obvious that it’s a dead horse and nowhere near capable of delivering the reforms we need. So public frustration is rising fast. So if your German friends seem a little more depressed than usual this winter, now you know why :)

@sergeynazarovx What surprised me when I was in NYC that employees of some stores (Whole Foods, gas stations, etc) couldn't answer to me in english. These where not front-desk ppl, but still didn't expect zero understanding of my questions 😅

what always surprises me in Germany as an immigrant is that when a homeless person approaches me, they can easily switch from German to perfect English with almost no accent

@tibo_maker I've heard AMEX has generous miles, but in the US and UK. Not sure how it works for EU customers. I'm planning to explore this topic over the Christmas break, as I want some business class experience as well 😃

@rusras_ I don't have miles 😅 how to get some 👀

call me cheap but this is my first time in business 🎉 a while ago, someone told me: "once you try, you can't go back, so delay it as much as you can" today is the day 😁

@levelsio I did full marathon with 100kg body weight a year ago. + 6 months of prep work before it. Now both of my knees are hurting from time to time (never had it before) I guess it's not very healthy :D

This is why I avoid running like the plague personally High odds you position your feet wrong and then running on asphalt makes it worse because it doesn't bounce like running on sand or grass would I can't count how many people I know who have knee injuries from running, it's not worth it for me I do cardio on a Concept2 bicycle in my gym and have never had any injury in my life

@tibo_maker are you solo parenting? we have twin boys 5-months old and we just have clear time schedule. from 8am to 3pm I'm working in my office room. unfortunately calls play a big role in my business. that's the only way I can onboard $10K+ clients to our product.

I stopped doing calls/meetings in business when my first child was born not because I had a perfect productivity system but because I had no other choice when you become a parent, your calendar becomes fiction. every call you schedule is a gamble. so the worst thing you can do as a founder-parent is make a plan you wake up thinking you’ll work on X, Y and Z… and then your kid is sick, your partner needs rest, something unexpected happens - and your day is gone that feeling is horrible. you planned your day - you thought you could control it. and suddenly, you can’t you keep reminding yourself that family comes first - that you need to be there. what worked for me was not having a plan at all - just living day by day when I’d get a 1-hour or 2-hour working window, I’d jump on the computer and start with the most important thing that’s the only way I kept momentum across all my products (image background edited - no showing my home 😅)

@aakashgupta I'm curious if the founder made lots of money from this exit. Is it a fire sale or a proper exit with good multiples?

Meta just paid to kill a $99 AI pendant and nobody’s asking why. Limitless raised $33M from Sam Altman and A16z, shipped a wearable that records conversations, and built a customer base paying $19/month for always-on memory augmentation. Meta acquired them Friday and immediately stopped selling devices. The math tells you everything. Existing customers get 1 year free, then the product dies. No new sales. EU and UK users banned outright and forced to export data by December 19 or lose everything permanently. This wasn’t about the product. It was about removing competition before OpenAI or Google could buy them. Meta already has Ray-Ban smart glasses doing 200%+ year-over-year growth with EssilorLuxottica. They hired Apple’s design chief Alan Dye this week. They don’t need a $99 pendant that records ambient conversation when they’re building AR glasses that integrate with 3 billion social media accounts. What they needed was the team that figured out always-on audio capture, real-time transcription, and searchable memory at consumer price points. And they needed that team off the market before someone else grabbed them. The timing matters. Limitless pivoted from Rewind (screen recording software for Mac) to hardware just last year. They proved the unit economics work at $99 hardware plus $19/month subscription. That’s the blueprint for personal AI assistants that actually ship. Meta saw that blueprint and killed it. Not because the product failed. Because it worked too well for a startup to own. Here’s what makes this really interesting. The pendant lives on borrowed time while Meta integrates the tech into their existing hardware. Ray-Ban glasses get smarter. Maybe Orion (their AR prototype) ships sooner. The Limitless team builds features for Meta’s ecosystem instead of competing products. Meanwhile, the privacy wall is obvious. Always-on recording violates GDPR in ways Meta won’t inherit. They’re not dumb enough to try defending continuous audio capture under EU regulations. Easier to geofence the liability, extract the IP, and redeploy it in compliant form factors. The second you ban your product in entire regulatory zones on day one of acquisition, you’ve admitted the product was never the point. The talent was the point. The competitive removal was the point. Classic acqui-hire dressed up as vision alignment. And the market bought the “personal superintelligence” narrative while Meta quietly eliminated a threat.

@rvivek don't worry. cluely is an ai note taker now.

Cluely is cooked. So is InterviewCoder. UltraCode too. Along with hundreds of "invisible cheating" tools. We built the HackerRank App to block this. Now, I know what you may be thinking as a developer: how do I trust the app? It blocks plagiarism tools, screen sharing, tab switching, external apps, and more, all while still giving developers an insanely great experience. Companies can even enable an AI assistant directly inside the test, so candidates do not have to rely on external references at all. "Cheating" might feel cool. But losing a job to someone who only got that because they played unfairly is not. Link below to learn more.

We just spent $15,000 on London Underground ads. Here's what I learned: The Setup: - 250 posters across Central London stations (focused on tech offices) - Escalators only, people stand still and actually look What I'd do differently: - Test your print first. Digital colors ≠ printed colors. Should've done a sample. - Add a promo code. People photograph posters. A promo code = easy tracking of actual conversions. The real ROI: Our campaign runs through the end of November, so too early to judge direct signups. But the biggest impact so far? Credibility. People now see us as an established company, not just another startup. Hard to quantify, easy to feel. The social media buzz? Way bigger than expected. Bottom line: Offline advertising works when you're ready to shift how people perceive your brand.

For our launch, we decided to go big and run ads in the London Underground 🚇 It’s our most expensive marketing experiment so far, and we’ll see how it performs over the next two weeks. If you’re passing through Liverpool Street, Canary Wharf, or any of the other major hubs in London, take a selfie with our banner. We’ll add one extra month of subscription for free 💙 Activate to view larger image,

@eliana_jordan @bluedotrocks thanks for the feedback 💙

@rusras_ @bluedotrocks I love this tool! AI chat functionality is my favourite, I don't have to read the script after meetings. I just can ask and get answers straight away :)

This is our biggest product update so far. Our team at @bluedotrocks has been working hard these last few months to make it happen 🙌 📱 Mobile app (iOS & Android) 💻 Desktop app 🔗 Make integration You can now record and transcribe without bots on every platform.

@tobi in case you want bot-free experience but with the video, check out bluedothq.com

I’m actually very pro meeting recording and ai summarization. But I’m not ok with bots joining as fake humans accomplish this. It’s a meeting between you and me. Not you and me and some startup’s viral growth strategy. Granola is great. Gemini does this well in Google Meet. Hyprnote is great and fully local. But use them with consent. My tweet is about how ridiculous and self important it looks when you show up to a meeting with random bots as entourage.