Ben Levy

It's been 24 hours since we (@shaanvp and I) announced that we sold the @milkroad Our goal has always been to have the most fun, no matter what the price of BTC is Couldn't be happier that we now get to go bigger with @kendallsaville & @mikewittmeyer

Tyler’s a beast

@Mr312 @BookCameo hang with one of these killers: @noelregrets, @RichardRyan, @RenjiBijoy, @amitvasudev_ , @brian_blum1

In Austin next two days for @BookCameo tech team offsite. Who should I see while down here?

@culturaltutor looks dope!!

I’ve made a short film. Look at the things around you: doors, bins, staircases, furniture, railings, doorhandles, windows. Do you like how they look, or not? Modern design has become boring, but it doesn’t have to be this way. The word “beautiful” is overused. We don’t need “beautiful” lamps, bus stops, and water fountains – we just need lamps, bus stops, and water fountains that are interesting, that actually mean something. Or, at the very least, not boring. Because the aesthetics of architecture and urban design aren’t just a bonus; they totally change how we think, feel, and behave. Boring environments make us more stressed and less productive; they erode our sense of community; they make us sadder, less trusting, and lonelier. A boring world is one where we spend even more time online and where our addictions are even harder to battle. The Problem There is global, widespread dissatisfaction with how the world looks. In this film, and the series it will lead to, we want to investigate that feeling and give it a voice. The point isn’t that we should return to the past or get rid of modernism. It’s about learning from the past in order to improve the present, and about giving the public what they very clearly want, which isn’t the eradication of modernism but the co-existence of modernism AND traditionalism. Just look where tourists go, where they take their photos, and that tells you everything you need to know about what most people find interesting or beautiful. And look at where people go on holiday. It’s always to cities filled with old architecture and design, with churches and mosques and palaces, with charming little alleyways and stone staircases and wrought-iron railings. Of the world’s fifty most visited buildings, only four were made in the 20th century, and they’re all museums or memorials. There’s a reason why posts about this go viral online all the time. Regardless of why the change happened, it is clearly the case that we no longer make things how we used to. People are rightly confused by the fact that old lamp posts (to take the example we focus on in the film) are usually so pretty, while modern ones are usually so boring. Some people say this is just an example of survivorship bias… and they’re mostly correct. But that’s the whole point! Saying old buildings are usually prettier than modern buildings is not to say that architecture used to be better, or that the past was better. It is simply to say that certain kinds of buildings, because they have been preserved, are good examples of what people like most. In which case... shouldn't we try to design at least some buildings in a way that we know people like? A Unifying Cause Everybody, from all sides of the political spectrum and all backgrounds, stands to benefit from a world that is designed more thoughtfully and imaginatively. The world could be such a colourful, meaningful, and thrilling place! So this isn’t about left versus right or conservatism versus progressivism; it’s about making our world a more interesting and meaningful place to live in. This should be a unifying cause, because everybody loses out when our homes and cities are badly designed. I want this film to unite people who think they’re on opposite sides, and to create a consensus that we need to change our approach to how we design our buildings and the objects – benches, bus stops, bins, lamp posts, aircon units – that fill our cities. The Importance of Details We are incredibly rich and have a sprawling choice of shows to stream, phones to buy, or shoes to wear… but everything feels more and more generic all the time. If you want to understand a society, don’t listen to what it says about itself – look at what it creates. You can learn everything about the Victorians – the good and the bad – just by looking at their lamp posts. And what do the ordinary details of the modern world say about us? That we are technologically advanced, very efficient… and care more about making money, about making things as quickly and cheaply as possible, than making our world an enjoyable place to actually live in. It’s important to learn about why and how things have changed, but that’s for another time. The first step is establishing that the public aren’t happy with modern architecture and design, and that something needs to be done. But what we need isn’t a total revival of so-called ‘traditionalism’; the truth is that traditionalism and modernism can (and should) co-exist. The trouble right now is that we only have one, and that people are tired of it. The Power of Noticing But this film (and the series it will, all being well, lead to) is about more than the specific argument it presents. Above all it’s about a way of seeing the world around us, a way of noticing and thinking. “How you do anything is how you do everything.” That is probably true, and it also applies to whole societies, not just individuals; a single doorbell implies everything else about the whole socio-economic and political system that gave rise to its creation. And, beyond being merely “useful”, the ability to notice details makes the world a richer place to live in, and life a richer thing to lead. This is what the film is about, more than anything: the power and joy of noticing. A Bigger Project This short film is just the beginning. We want to make a full series about the history of art and architecture, both for their own sake and also to see what we can learn about life in the twenty-first century and how to improve it. To keep updated you can join our email list over at our website, linked in the reply below. Final Words You can watch the film here on X, or over on YouTube, also linked in the reply below. So… this is where the dream begins, the dream of a new series and the dream of a more charming, more interesting, more meaningful modern world. Spread the word.

@chucky @RiadEtm @chucky is for sure 😂

Tag the best YouTube strategy people below

@denk_tweets @beehiiv lol what kinda snacks are you offering

looking for a cracked AI engineer who wants to build dope tech and launch it to hundreds of thousands of users cracked = high energy, optimistic, build-first mentality can name your own title: AI Czar @beehiiv is available reply or hit my dms

@andferminiano @sunomusic Is this a real number? What’s the source

.@sunomusic grew from a tiny user base in late 2023 to an estimated of ˜14-15M users/month now. About ~3% of Spotify's user base

@sweatystartup Check out what @jordanlwalker is doing

Is there an in-person voice recorder with AI summaries, notes, etc? Like an online meeting AI tool but for real life?

@protectedpick or this haha x.com/DaneMooreNBA/s…

Every time I read the NBA GM survey I find myself thinking...are most GMs bad?

@david_perell So dope!

Announcing: Writing Examples Today is launch day! We built this website to celebrate great writing. It’s 100% free. Each article deconstructs a piece of writing from an iconic writer. The goal is to give you X-Ray vision into what makes sentences and paragraphs come alive (so that you can improve at your craft). Every example has an analysis of why the writing works. Analytical often means dry. But instead of going technical, we’ve gone technicolor. There are text-explainers, summary graphics, and videos that come together to make the writing instruction lively and multi-dimensional. It’s a place where you can discover how great writing comes together. Where we lift up the hood and see the mechanics in action. It isn’t about giving you a set of rules to follow. It’s about showing the diversity of ways writers approach their craft, so you can develop your own style. What are some of the articles about? You’ll learn how to describe a party like F. Scott Fitzgerald, how to tell a story like George Orwell, how to write a speech like John F. Kennedy. There are other articles inspired by the likes of John Steinbeck, James Clear, Winston Churchill, Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Dickens, Steven Pressfield, and Jerry Seinfeld. Writing Examples is a crusade against the sterility of contemporary writing. So much of the advice you read says the same thing: “Be direct. Cut the fluff. Get to the point. Stick to short sentences.” And yeah, sure, this advice has merit. It’s useful in certain cases, but the problem is writers take these rules to be universal, which has homogenized writing styles. Even in my own writing, there’ve been so many times where I’ve stripped away my own voice in the name of “correctness.” I regret that. The truth is, there is no one way to write well, just as there is no one way to speak well. The way you speak in a boardroom is different from the way you speak on a first date, which is different from the way you speak with your childhood best friends. Writing is similar. Writing Examples is the opposite of Grammarly. It celebrates the wild, wacky, and the weird because it’s the bedrock of personality. The site’s explicit purpose is to inject some High Noon Chutzpah back into the world of writing. To teach you how to write with distinctly human fingerprints in a world that’s about to be flooded with AI-generated content. Forget playing it safe. That’s the most dangerous thing you can do in a world of instant writing. I want you to write with personality. I want you to play with punctuation. I want you to ditch the corporatized hogwash. I want to expand your sense of what great writing can be. And I want you to have fun doing it. But there’s more to the mission. Writing Examples is a protest against today’s Internet, where people spend the majority of their time reading ad-polluted articles and doom-scrolling the same few social media sites. Remember when we used to surf the Internet? When every site was its own wave to ride? Now, we’re like phone-addicted zombies, we mindlessly scroll Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram until we feel bad about ourselves — only to repeat the cycle a few hours later. Writing Examples is different. Heartfelt writing deserves a heartfelt presentation, so every element of the site has been designed from scratch. Energetically, we wanted to honor the gravitas of classic writing without the sleepiness of a drab old library shelf.  We said no to ads. We said no to pop-ups. No hijacking your attention. None of the flat white backgrounds that make the Internet feel so homogenous. And we said no to anything that feels like your 5th-grade English class. Writing Examples isn’t about what’s trending. It’s about learning from the great writers of times past, most of whom you know, many of whom you probably haven’t taken the time to read. The ultimate goal is to make Writing Examples a one-stop shop to learn about any kind of writing you can think of. Now, I dare you to dive into the site and get to work.

@aakashgupta thanks!

@benmlevy x.com/thepatwalls/st…

Mr. Beast is definitely full founder mode.

@PeterRahal @ShaanVP

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@lennysan what's the link to the study? @lennysan

YouTube is eating podcasting

@KellanOlson @mcclurgmatt What are your expectations

@mcclurgmatt 9 (w/ context and reasonable expectations)

waiting at my gate q/a. Fire away

@patrick_oshag @abemurray

You have to set up a 6-8 person dinner with the most interesting people in Boston, who are you inviting?

@ShaanVP @PalmerLuckey @FastCompany this would be dope @PalmerLuckey

@PalmerLuckey @FastCompany @PalmerLuckey come do a demo/tell the story on My First Million Bigger reach / more fun than old press

The @FastCompany article about the ModRetro Chromatic is crap. First off, this isn't how patents work. The "analyst" doesn't seem to understand that the entire point of our patent system is to trade eventual free use for time-limited exclusivity. 1989 was a long time ago.

Proud member of the backwards cap tribe

Austin Founders Pickup Run 🏀 Back in action this Wednesday. Got a couple regulars out. Who wants to come hoop?! cc @benmlevy @ColinKeeley @deancbrennan @nathanbaugh27

@cory @nsaubin

who are the best health care founders (and investors) out there? z fellows could use some great health care mentors!

Whoever started Subguey Mexican Sandwiches deserves an award