A Collection of My Best Tweets from the Last 4 Months

Around 2 years ago, I started tweeting and blogging. Since then, my perspective on the world has dramatically changed. The world is bigger than I ever could have imagined, yet still small and accessible through the internet.

I pulled together a few tweets from the past four months. I have experienced an exponential amount of growth in that time period. I was a fellowship recipient of HackNY, lived in Union Square for the summer, and interned at the Betaworks-backed reading service Instapaper.

As promised, here’s a collection of my best tweets from the past 4 months. Descriptions are included.

Dustin Curtis – the founder of blogging network Svbtle – wrote a great piece on Facebook’s predicament with launching a new design, when numbers do not support it. http://dcurt.is/facebooks-predicament

I meet too many people who say “Man, I could never be really good at coding. Everyone else started coding at 13.” Just because you did not start coding at 13 does not mean you can’t succeed. However, starting early is extremely beneficial. The point of the matter is… just start.

Even then, I think “start early” applies to many other things. When people think about technology, they think about products and innovation. The truth is, technological innovation is not about products; it is about relationships. Relationships take time. Reach out to people and be friends. Becoming really connected is not accomplished in days; It is accomplished in years.

The Art Spirit was recommended by Jack Dorsey – the founder of Twitter – in one of his talks. This book has fundamentally changed my perspective about art and the world in general.

I think some of the strongest non-maternal bonds in the world are in technology. A lot of people who have these deep thoughts and visions feel alienated from the rest of society. When like-minded people are able to connect, they form really close bonds. Being young also helps. These bonds are hard to gain again when you’re 40 years old with a family.

I think about this one all the time. I actually wrote this tweet on a train to New York. It is a commuter train with 3 seats on one side and 2 seats on the other. I noticed that people would rather stand the rest of the trip and be on their phones, rather than ask someone else for a seat.

This is an important problem. You need to have the courage to ask. Steve Jobs echoed this when talked about getting his first job. What separates people from those who do things and those who don’t are the ones who ask.

This is an easy one. It is something that most people don’t experience. When I wake up in the morning, I look for things that ignite my spirit. If you haven’t found something that ignites your spirit, keep looking.

A lot of the reason I have struggled with college is because I have not found a good community. This summer, I experienced a fantastic community with HackNY. I am continually looking to find that community where I feel comfortable. Be part of a community.

My good friend Ryan Hoover said this in one of his blog posts when explaining why he did not learn to code. He felt that getting a skim-milk code education would not help him. Having a team of talented engineers may have been much more beneficial in the end.

This is one of the most important tweets. In New York, every week felt like a month. Everyone told me the summer flew by. When I look back at my Instagram feed during the summer, I think to myself “I experienced every moment. Nothing flew by.”

I think in technology, more than any field, we should be aware of this fact. Nothing lasts forever. The social platform of today is not the social platform of tomorrow. Teenagers are a prime example of this. One moment something is cool, the next moment it is not. Product people should be aware of this. It is a sad fact, but one we have to deal with.

As with my earlier post, you should find a community. I think you should not only seek out that community, but you should also seek out a community where you feel valuable. If you are in a group of people who make you feel valuable, you will have a much more positive outlook on life.

99% of my graduating high school class went to a University. Back then, it was an expectation for honor roll students to go to a Top 50 University. I do not think there was anything wrong with that expectation at the time. Parents who could afford to send their kids to private school, of course, want what they think is best – college. I am not disputing the college education system; it has the best of intentions. However, a 4 years education at a very expensive school may not have been the right expectation to burden a 17 year old with.

The more important fact is that you should be aware of what people are expecting from you. Sometimes, people can expect the wrong things from you. You try to follow your own intuition about what is right. Do not believe that just because a peer expects something from you, that that expectation is the right expectation.

The last tweet I leave you with is a quote from Emma Watson’s UN speech. I think this quote will stick with me for a very long time. If there is anything in your life that your feel moved to have an impact on, you need to ask “if not me, who? if not now, when?”

Let me know which of these tweets you like the best. You can add an in-line comment on Medium or send me a tweet.

For more of these tweets, you can follow me here.