You can rarely predict what will go viral

Much to my surprise my Medium post Uber and the Venture Capital Apocalypse has gone viral on twitter. Or at least viral for me. Maybe a hundred people or so have tweeted references to it.

The spread has been interesting to watch. Cab drivers in the US and the UK really liked the post since it describes the inevitable demise of Uber. The tweet was somehow picked up by a few venture capital funds, and they are retweeting it (I’m sure that these are the funds that didn’t invest in Uber).

I’m used to being largely ignored on the Internet. I have some followers on Medium and almost none on Twitter. I have three Facebook friends (I use nderground, so I don’t really do Facebook).

Watching this post spread has been a bit scary. It reminds me that the nature of viral spread on the Internet is unpredictable. You have to always be careful because something that you think will only be noticed by a few people could hit twitter and go viral.

Which is why we decided to build nderground. We wanted a place where people could share their lives with their friends without worrying that something they posted could unexpectedly go viral and hurt them professionally or personally.